


Sanctuary

by PoetryInMotion



Series: Clan Djarin [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Canon Divergence, Clan Djarin, Din Djarin heart eyes, F/M, Family, Found Family, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sequel, Tag Updates will continue until morale improves, bounty hunting is a complicated profession, omera is a queen, suspense!, the Whole Nine Yards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 49,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24827509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoetryInMotion/pseuds/PoetryInMotion
Summary: After months of wandering the galaxy, Clan Djarin is finally ready to make a home base on Nevarro, among the lava fields and familiar faces. But just as it seems they may finally be able to settle, their suit for peace is interrupted when an attempt is made on Din's life, as well as the lives of his family. Din must hunt down the assassin's buyer before another, more deadly, attack can be made.
Relationships: The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars)
Series: Clan Djarin [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705543
Comments: 295
Kudos: 105





	1. Below

**Author's Note:**

> In which Clan Djarin arrives on Nevarro, and each member takes their new environment differently.

As far as Outer Rim worlds went, Nevarro was relatively tame. Sure, it had its less reputable corners—its seedy parts of town, where cantinas were more likely populated by bounty hunters and smugglers than anyone else. But it was certainly no Tattooine. Admittedly, though, there was something haunted about this town; something deeper lay behind the ruins that fenced the town in like broken teeth in some great animal's maw.

A short-haired woman lounged against one of the broken pillars, her eyes fixed on the empty slate-grey sky above. No one asked her why she was loitering there—everyone in town had learned that the former Shock-trooper was not one to be bothered, especially given her connection to Greef Karga. If Cara Dune wanted to lounge, she was allowed to do so.

Cara wiped the sweat off back of her neck and asked herself two questions at once—why did it have to be so damn  _ hot?  _ And why did this contact have to be taking his sweet time getting here? Karga had sent her as a welcome wagon, but she couldn't welcome anyone if they didn't show up on time. Still, sitting here watching the clouds as they migrated across the sky beat fielding the petty issues of Karga's bounty hunters—but only barely.

A flash of silver interrupted the endless grey. Cara's eyes darted towards it, watching its progress. _Finally_. She had half a sarcastic greeting formed in her head before she got a better look at the ship on the horizon. The slow smile of someone realizing the punchline of a joke spread across Cara's face.

“It's about damn time.”

She swung her outstretched leg back under her and got to her feet, patting dusty soil off her legs. She stood there for a moment, hands on her hips, then started out for the Razor Crest as it chose a place to land.

/////

The Razor Crest landed with the whirr of engines and a hiss of steam—the ship itself breathed a sigh of relief. Din breathed one, too. Finally, after two months of wandering, he could turn off controls. He could bring his family home.

As he adjusted his helmet on his head and climbed down from the cockpit, Omera finished setting a small pack on Winta's back, which was no easy task. Winta fidgeted as if she hadn't seen the sky or smelled fresh air in ages. The baby fed off of that excitement, pacing around her as quickly as his little legs could carry him.

“What do you think it looks like out there?” Winta asked her mother.

“Well, we'll see in a minute, won't we?” Omera replied, giving her an encouraging smile.

Just as his feet hit the floor, Winta turned her attention to Din.

“Dad! What's Nevarro like?”

Din paused. He hadn't quite thought about what he could say to prepare her. She was a child born to verdant forests and sparkling creeks, villagers who knew her by her name—the dusty volcanic flats sparsely populated by strangers would shock her at most, disappoint her or cause her to resent him at worst.

“It's, ah...different.” He settled on the most tactful explanation as he hefted the heaviest pack onto his shoulder with a grunt. The baby circled around to him and reached up, his tiny hands opening and closing—a well-used and well-loved signal by both him and his father. Din scooped him up and tucked him into the crook of his arm. The baby purred his approval as Omera took Winta's hand and came to Din's side, gesturing to the hatch with her head.

“Shall we?”

Din studied her face carefully for a moment. Her eyes met his behind the visor, accurate as always. Somehow, she still seemed unflappable; if she had any misgivings or doubts about their new home planet, he couldn't see it on the surface. Bracing himself, Din took a deep breath and pressed the hatch button on his gauntlet. They couldn't stay in the Razor Crest forever.

The door lowered slowly, letting in a gust of hot air and the familiar smell of ash. The place he'd made his home revealed itself inch by inch—flat white sky, a rim of black rocks in the distance, the ruins, the city, and—

“So _you're_ my contact.”

It didn't seem to register at first, but as soon as it clicked in Cara's head that Omera and Winta stood beside Din—not only that, but Omera's hand was laced in Din's—the confident sarcasm of a comrade welcoming another back to home base vanished as her eyebrows shot up behind her dark side-swept hair and her mouth fell open, then closed again.

“Cara!” Winta chirped, bolting for her and wrapping her arms around the Shocktrooper's waist. Still a bit surprised, Cara slowly brought her hands down onto Winta's shoulders.

“Hey, Winta. What are you doing here?” Cara asked as she cast a pointed glance at Din.

Oh, he was never going to hear the end of this.

“It's a long story.”

“Yeah, well, I think I can guess the ending,” Cara replied, pointing to Din and Omera's interlinked hands. “Good to see you, Omera.”

“It's good to see you too,” Omera replied as she and Din disembarked. As if remembering herself, Winta backed away from Cara and cast her first real glance around the landscape. Her smile fell like a feather—slowly, and in a wavering sort of way.

“...Where are all the trees?”

Din winced under his helmet.

“They don't grow here, kid. Not much does.”

“Oh.” Din tried not to read too much into that one syllable, but the sudden leaden weight in his gut told him exactly what he had done: he'd disappointed her.

“That's okay. We'll make other things grow, won't we, Winta?” Omera, once again, covering his insecurities. Winta nodded and reattached to Omera's side, taking her other hand.

Cara seemed to notice the change in Winta's attitude, but she had the decency to not mention it. Instead, she focused her attention on the little green figure in Din's arms, greeting him with a well-received scratch to the ear.

“Hey, little guy! Has Dad been good to you? Lots of snacks?”

“Anything he can find to put in his mouth,” Din replied on his behalf, remembering all the unfortunate frogs, salamanders, and...whatever that other creature was on Jakku, swallowed in one piece.

“Well, he's a growing...whatever he is. He needs it. Don't you, kiddo?” Cara gave the baby's ear one last scratch before returning the conversation to Din. “So, you told Greef you were coming, but not me? Rude.” A slanted smile told Din not to take the chiding seriously.

“We had to keep a low profile. I only told Karga so he could keep a couple bounties open for me.”

Cara's smile drooped at the corner.

“You're still being tracked?”

“Hopefully not.” Din subconsciously lowered his voice, as if he and Cara were sitting discussing the matter while the children eavesdropped from another room. “I think we've bought some time, at least.”

“Good. Well, if they try to come around here again, they'll get the same welcome as last time.”

Cara held out her forearm, and Din released Omera's hand so he could take it. Cara's grip was as strong as the convictions of her words.

/////

Winta tightened her grip on her mother's hand, biting her lower lip between her teeth as she stumbled over a crumbling stair.

“Careful, sweetheart. Watch your feet.”

How could she possibly watch her feet when she felt like she needed to watch everywhere else? There were so many buildings, but they looked so hollow. There were so many people, but they looked hollow, too. There were no smiles, no cheerful voices, no friendliness—everywhere she looked, Winta saw strangers, not simply people she didn't know yet, like on the other planets Dad had taken them to. All those other places, there were at least a couple of beings who gave off some friendly feeling. But these were _real_ strangers. _Dangerous._

Why would Dad bring them here?

She looked over at him and wished with all her heart that she could see his face. She knew, of course, why he had his helmet on in public. It was The Way. But a single reassuring smile, even a wink, just to say that everything would be all right, or even to say that this was all a joke and they wouldn't be staying here in this treeless place—anything would have been better than the cold, hard steel that kept its eyes straight ahead, not even casting her a sidelong glance.

Even Mom seemed different here. Her jaw was set almost as firmly as Dad's helmet, and she kept her head high, almost as if she was daring any of the strangers to say something to her. She'd let go of Dad's hand to keep her pack on her shoulder, but the knuckles on that hand had gone white—Winta knew the pack wasn't that heavy. She'd helped put their clothes in it.

Her own pack was starting to dig into her shoulders. The few toys she had in her bag were starting to poke into her back, all odd, sharp angles. Everything was odd, sharp angles.

Winta felt tears starting to sting in her eyes, but she blinked them back, tried to copy Mom's stance. What would Dad think of her if she started bawling in the middle of the street in a ginormous city full of angry-looking, sad-looking, dangerous-looking strangers?

_We need you to be brave,_ ad'ika. _Can you do that for us?_

She would certainly try, but Dad didn't make it any easier when he started down a flight of stairs that spiraled into nothing. And Mom followed him. And she followed Mom, all the way down.

Winta still had tears in her eyes, but now they were from all the dust in yet another strange place—everything all identical angles, even the sunlight that filtered through the windows in the...roof? Ground? Winta could hardly figure it out. Were they windows still? Or vents? How could they breathe down here?

Dad took the lead, and for a while, all Winta could see was his back. It felt like he was walking away from them. She knew, of course, that that wasn't the case. She told herself that it made sense. Dad was the one that lived here, so they would follow him down all these empty, silent hallways. She so desperately wished he would pick her up in his arms, hold her tight, tell her that it was all going to be okay, that maybe she would like it here, or that they wouldn't be here for long. But again, she knew that Mom and Dad needed her to be brave, and there was nothing brave about crying in your daddy's arms like a baby. Maybe later, she told herself. Hopefully later.

It felt like they would never stop wandering, but eventually, Dad stopped at the mouth of a dead end. But the end wasn't dead. There was a room at the end with a huge, scary-looking skull over it. It was the same skull that Little Brother wore around his neck. On him, it was interesting. Leering over her head, it was terrifying.

“Is that where we're living?” Winta tried to check the waver in her voice but failed.

Dad finally turned around. He knelt in front of her and took her shoulder in the hand that wasn't currently cradling Little Brother.

“No, sweetheart. I just need to go in here for a minute and talk to the Armorer.”

“The Armorer?” A long time ago, when she'd asked where he got his armor, he'd talked about the Armorer, speaking about her like some kind of mythical person, and in her head, Winta imagined a giant woman, dressed just like Dad, with a giant box full of armor pieces to give to people who deserved it—Mandalorians.

“Yes. I need to let her know that we're here. I won't be long, I promise.” At least his voice sounded like Dad, and not Mando. He straightened back up and turned to Mom.

“I don't know if she'll want to see you yet. Mind waiting here?”

“Want me to take the baby?”

“No, I'll bring him. I won't be long.” Dad leaned in and put his forehead against Mom's. Then he turned and walked toward the big door at the end of the hallway.

Something moved in the room beyond—a huge shadow. No. She had to be brave. She had to be brave. She had to be brave. Winta trained her eyes on the room ahead and tried not to blink.

She watched Dad kneel, and the shadow moved so it stood over him. It was so much taller than him. He looked small. For a few moments, Winta listened as Dad—Mando—spoke with another voice, too far away and too quiet to understand, other than to understand that it was a woman speaking. Then, Dad turned over his shoulder and beckoned to them.

Oh, no.

Oh, _no._

They were going in.

_Be brave,_ ad'ika _. Be brave. Be brave._

The hallway got hotter as they moved closer to Dad. Mom's face had gone all hard again. Why was everything so hard? The skull loomed closer and closer, until they passed under it, and into the mouth of the cave.

For all the fear she'd felt build inside of her, Winta found herself instead surprised. Dad knelt before a woman who was about her mother's size, wearing much different armor than Dad. Her armor was all golden, and she had a fur pelt around her shoulders. She wore a leather apron, weathered with use. Her helmet, though, struck Winta the most. Golden like her armor, it had spikes on the crown, and a brim that looked much more sculpted, more angular than Dad's. In the dim, orange light, it looked like there were etchings in it, but she couldn't tell for sure.

It was terrifying. It was beautiful. It was both.

Winta followed Mom's lead as she knelt next to Dad. The ground was hard here—she hoped they wouldn't stay for long.

“So. This is the woman who followed you.”

A chill ran down Winta's spine, despite the heat around them. She'd never heard a voice like this woman's.

“Yes.” Mom's voice was something Winta couldn't place anymore.

The Armorer gave a slow nod.

“Welcome, Omera of Alderaan and Sorgan.” With dread and—dare she say it? Yes. Excitement—Winta watched as the scary-beautiful helmet turned toward her.

“And your daughter. Winta.”

Her heart fluttered even faster. Her own name sounded different. It sounded important now, in a way that Winta never thought it could sound. Her head swam.

The Armorer turned again to Dad, who spoke again, in his Mando voice.

“I take both Omera and Winta into my clan. They are my own.”

“Very well. Omera,” the Armorer spoke to Mom, “You are not required to swear the Creed unless you so choose. You are a woman of your own right, not raised in the Way, and as such, you may make your own decision. The child, however...” The Armorer cast a glance at Winta, and she felt herself shrink. “It is an integral part of our Creed to raise our children as Mandalorians. Should Din Djarin take Winta to be his child, he shall begin training her immediately. When she comes of age, she will swear the Creed.”

Her. Winta of Sorgan. A Mandalorian.

The world went black.

/////

“I'm okay, Momma. I promise.”

From her vantage point, Omera wasn't so sure. She knelt by Winta's bedroll, spread out on the floor of the small quarters Din had brought them to. Since she'd fainted in the armory, Winta had insisted that she was fine—just hot, overtired. But Omera hadn't been oblivious that day. She noticed how clammy Winta's hand had been in hers, how she stuck so close to her side that it felt like they were one unit, how her breath shuddered near the surface. She hadn't had a chance to really sit with her, though—there had been so much to do to try and settle in.

Now that it was time for bed, Omera finally had a chance to comfort.

She reached out and stroked Winta's cheek, reassured to find it a normal temperature—not feverish, not chilled.

“I know this is a lot to adjust to, sweetheart, but this isn't permanent. We'll find a house above ground, and we'll make it home. I promise.”

“Your mother's right.” Din came in the door, the baby's cradle floating next to him, filled with the last of the things they needed from the ship. The baby padded over to Din, his head tilting, making a frustrated little noise as if to say, “That's mine! Why are there other things in it?” In response, Din pulled the packs out of the cradle and set them on the floor. To the baby's satisfaction, Din picked him up and placed him in the cradle. Then he made his way over to where Winta lay, kneeling next to Omera. After casting a furtive look over his shoulder, he took off his helmet. Winta visibly relaxed.

“Winta, I know this place isn't what you're used to. It's okay if you're not okay.”

“But I am,” she insisted. “I was just really tired. That's all.”

So she was going to stick to it. Omera took a deep breath.

“Well, if you want to talk about things, we're right here for you. Okay?”

Winta nodded wordlessly. Omera bent and kissed her on her forehead.

“Get some sleep, _ad'ika_ ,” Din said as he stood. “We'll be right over here if you need us.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Winta rolled to face the wall, and Omera stood, too, looking to the bed across the one-room living space. It was smaller than the one in the Razor Crest—she and Din would have to cuddle close. Not that she minded that. But there were other things clouding her mind as she went and sat on its edge. Her own reservations about Nevarro were enough to cope with. Like Winta, she hadn't necessarily been prepared for just how different this place was from anywhere else she'd ever lived. But Winta had never been closed to her before. Before, how she was feeling had never been a mystery. If she was happy, you knew because she told you why. If she was sad, or scared, she asked for help. But now, there was something separating them. She felt a hairline fracture in her heart spread a few inches.

The rickety bed sagged next to her, and a hand found her waist.

“I'm sorry.”

She shook her head and looked at Din, then back down at her lap.

“It's not your fault. This is where you're based, so it's where we need to be.”

A pause, heavy-laden with unsaid things, unsaid fears.

“We _will_ find a home, you know.” Din's hand moved to her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “And when we do, we'll make it just the way you want it.”

Omera gave a little chuckle under her breath.

“ _Just_ the way I want it?”

“Mm-hm. And it'll have the biggest garden this planet's ever seen.”

Omera gave a melancholy smile. She knew he was trying to comfort her, but it wasn't getting to the heart of things.

“Din, the only thing I want in a home is a happy family. And Winta...”

Omera remembered something. She brought her opposite hand up and covered the hand on her shoulder.

“When I was a little girl,” she started, tone hushed, “I found a beautiful flower in my mother's garden. We hadn't planted it—it just appeared one morning. And it was the most incredible, delicate thing I'd ever seen. So I picked it. I brought it to my mother to show her, but by the time I got back to the house, it had started to wilt. And no matter how we watered it, no matter what sort of soil we replanted it in, no matter how much care we gave it...it died.”

The soft pat of a tear falling on her dress. Fingers under her chin, guiding her face back to Din's. Eyes soft, a little crease appearing between his brows.

“Winta's made of stronger stuff than that.” The assurance in his voice was so secure that it felt like a bridge was being formed between her and Din—a beskar steel bridge, unbreakable. “If she could make it through what she's been through, she'll find a way to make it through this. Besides, humans aren't flowers, _cyar'ika_. They have voices. And when she's ready, Winta will talk to us. She'll tell us what she needs. And when she does, we'll be there. Won't we?”

Omera nodded, blinking another tear away. The kiss Din planted on her forehead seeped through to her mind, spreading its warmth into the cold, nervous reaches. Strong arms pulled her in, and she allowed herself to be held, to be comforted—and what a beauty it was to be comforted, even in this strange new world.


	2. Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Din finds himself thrown into a team of strangers to track down a high-value bounty.

Even in her sleep, she still looked guarded.

As Din finished fitting his shin guards to his legs, he cast another glance at Omera, still lying in their bed. Neither of them had slept much—a few fitful naps here and there. Most of his night had been spent listening, watching into the darkness, making sure he was available should Winta have another nightmare, should Omera need his voice again, should the child simply need to be held. Now, even in the dim gray dawn filtering through vents in the hallway, Omera's shoulders stayed tensed; her face retained some amount of hardness from the previous day—a hardness that took Din by disheartening surprise, given the soft, indescribable expression that usually graced her in the mornings. He looked back in his memory for that morning in the birch glade, lying with her in the grass by the river.

The mattress groaned as Omera sat up with a low sigh. She locked eyes with him, and her shoulders sagged.

“Morning already?”

Din sighed and nodded, standing up and adjusting his braces.

The bed squeaked and fell silent, replaced by Omera's quiet footfalls as she came to Din and moved around to his back. With practiced ease, she checked the latches on his backplate, then turned her attention to his shoulder pauldron, giving it a tug to ensure its security.

“I wish you didn't have to go.”

“That makes two of us.” Din turned to face her and took her hands in his. “I'll make this as quick as I can.”

Omera nodded, her face unreadable. She slipped her hands out of his and bent to take his helmet from where it rested on the floor. She pressed her lips briefly to the crown, just above the visor, then did the same to his lips before gently placing the helmet on his head.

“For luck.”

Din smiled and returned their morning call-and-response:

“All my love.”

The warmth of that luck buoyed itself in his center as he made his way up the stairway and into the streets, humming with the noise of a city waking to face the day. People were already starting to come out of their doorways, looking to the sky as if hoping it had changed overnight. The smell of street food turned his stomach—somebody had burnt whatever it was they were trying to cook. A child ran past him, and he wondered if she was simply playing a game, or if she was a more dubious messenger, a carrier of secrets and intel from one criminal to another. If she'd been a little taller, she would have looked a bit like Winta.

Before he could follow that association any further, he was greeted by a booming laugh as he entered the common house, which already teemed with its usual clientele.

“There he is!”

Karga gestured to him from his usual seat, a broad grin spreading across his face. With some confusion, Din saw that Karga wasn't alone—a tall, willowy Mirialan clad in black leather turned to face him, throwing an arm over the back of the booth. Their hair, if it existed, was tucked away under a tight scarf. The sheer amount of tattoos on the Mirialan's face was dizzying, so much so that he could scarcely find their eyes.

They stayed seated as Karga stood and met Din, giving his hand a firm shake.

“It's about time you came back, Mando!” Karga exclaimed. “I was starting to worry that you'd given it up. Where's the little guy?” he added, gesturing to Din's empty arms.

“Back on the Crest.” Even if he trusted Karga, Din didn't trust anyone else that might be listening in. They didn't need to know. Din made a note to ask Karga for a private meeting later so he could lay out the events of the past few months.

“Good, good. Glad to see he got you back safe.” A laugh rumbled in Karga's chest as he gestured to the space next to the Mirialan. “Come on. We've saved you a seat.”

Karga reoccupied his space, but Din stayed standing, trying to figure out the Mirialan he was meant to sit next to.

“Who's 'we?'”

“Ah, of course. Introductions. Mando—Ellis Kazan,” he gestured to the Mirialan, who acknowledged him with a nod. Din stopped for a moment. Ellis Kazan. The name rang a few bells—they were one of the most efficient members of the Guild, and had been so for longer than Din had been on Nevarro. He ran through their stats in his head; hundreds of bounties, nearly no kills, record turn-around. Frankly, he was surprised the two of them had never met before, even with his reluctance to socialize. 

He slid into the booth next to them as they crossed their legs, taking their arm off the back of the booth.

“Good to meet you, Mando. I've heard good things.” Their voice glided, dark and warm-toned. 

Din nodded his acknowledgment. 

“Now.” Karga slapped a hand on the table and reached down next to him to grab a tracking fob. “To business. Almost as soon as you asked me to save you a bounty, this one came my way. And trust me, Mando, it's one hell of a job.”

“Wait, wait.” Ellis leaned forward on their elbows. “I thought you said you were saving this one for me and my team.”

“I did. This a team job, and you need one more member.”

Din's chest clenched as Karga indicated that he was meant to be the additional member of a team he had no intention of joining.

“Why? You've seen how my team works. We don't need one more.”  


“But your client thinks a team would be best. In fact, they requested Mando take point—if he's available.”

“You know I don't do teams, Karga,” Din ground out, his hackles rising at the memory of the last time he'd been joined by other hunters on a job—Xi'an's voice still crackled in the back of his mind, and no matter how satisfying it was to watch Malk's base blow to hell, he felt like was still being watched from the fragments.

“You will when you hear the price.” Karga leaned in and folded his hands, bouncing them for emphasis. “50,000 credits. Each. And that's after I take my cut.”

The anger in Din's head ground to a screeching halt. Ellis leaned in, resting their forearm on the table, tattoos contorting as their face dropped into shock.

“...You're joking.” 

Karga smirked.

“Figured you'd change your mind.”

“What's the catch?” Ellis asked.

Karga paused for a moment before replying.

“Your target is known only as BZ-3484.”

The designation fell like freezing lead in Din's stomach.

“A Stormtrooper.”

“Not just a Stormtrooper,” Karga clarified. “A special ops Trooper. Worked for some high-level moffs, designing their security details, then seeing those plans out—personally. Over a hundred confirmed kills. He went dark after the Battle of Endor, but the Republic has decided they need him—and more importantly, the information he has—as soon as possible.”

Ellis's upper lip curled into a sneer.

“Great. We're working for the Republic now.”

Karga put his hands up and leaned back in his seat.

“Hey, credits are credits, aren't they?”

“Why bounty hunters, though?” Din asked, suspicion sitting up in the back of his head. “Why don't they just go after him themselves?” 

“I'd imagine setting up a new Galactic government is stretching their resources pretty thin.”

Ellis scoffed and sat back, crossing their arms.

“Yeah, because they did such a bang-up job last time they tried to rule. They're the reason all this shit happened in the first place.”

“Look,” Karga said, tone starting to wear thin. “I'm not here to talk politics. I'm just here to offer you a job that's worth more than a year of bail-jumpers and drug smugglers. Are you in, or aren't you?”

Ellis took a moment to consider, then turned themselves to look at Din, gesturing to the tracking fob on the table.

“I'm in if you are.”

The knot in Din's stomach tightened. The last thing he wanted was to get tangled back up with Imperials after months of actively avoiding them. But in his mind's eye, he watched 50,000 credits disperse themselves into a house above ground. More than one room. Actual beds that weren't bolted to anything. More than enough food to feed his family.

Din's hand closed around the fob.

Ellis patted the table and sighed.

“Right. Let's go round everybody up.”

/////

The Twi'lek bath house sat far enough outside of the city that the patrons wouldn't be disturbed by the cosmopolitan chatter, but near enough that it wasn't a run-down shambles. In fact, the bath house was, by any method of reckoning, the nicest building this side of Nevarro. Din had never really paid it much mind—he'd never wanted or needed to take the Twi'leks up on any of their offers—but as he and Ellis entered the building, the very walls oozed with expensive taste and thick, heavily-perfumed steam.

An ancient-looking Twi'lek woman sat behind the front counter, but instead of greeting them, her walnut-wrinkled face screwed into a disdainful snarl.

“ _Neh'naa!_ ” she called over her shoulder. “Your weirdo friend is here!”

“Nice to see you too, Sih'tuu,” Ellis snipped as the elderly Twi'lek turned and pushed through a door, slamming it behind her. A brief argument in Twi'leki from behind the door preceded the appearance of a much younger Twi'lek tossing one of her lekku back over her shoulder.

“Hey, Ellis. Sorry about—”

The second she laid eyes on Din, she froze, her voice stopping in her throat with a squeak.

“We've got a job, Neh'naa,” Ellis said, “With a little extra help this time. This is—”

“I know who he is! Who doesn't?” Neh'naa leaned over the counter, eyes glittering jade. “You're  _the_ Mandalorian!”

Din gave her a stiff nod.

“Is it true you fought off a whole squad of Stormtroopers single-handedly? I mean, I was on-world when it happened, but I was working, of course, because we can never get enough help around here, not since my cousins decided to go off-world, so I didn't see it myself, but trust me, I've heard the stories, and I just wanted to ask you if—”

Thankfully, Ellis spoke up so he wouldn't have to.

“Neh'naa, focus. I hate to do this to you, but we're kind of on a time—”

“Okay!” Neh'naa darted back through the door, her hands flying to untie the apron around her waist. After some crashing sounds, a couple of swear words, and another argument Din had no hope of understanding, she reappeared with a skip in her step.

“So?” she asked as she lifted the counter's barrier and came to the other side. “What's the job?”

“Maybe someplace more private?” Din suggested. Even if they were the only three in the front of house, there was no telling what the patrons in the baths could hear.

“Oh, sure, sure! The usual place?” Neh'naa leaned conspiratorially toward Ellis.

“You can just say your apartment,” they said with a good-natured eye roll. Neh'naa pouted, but quickly regained steam.

“Yeah, but that's a lot less fun. Come on!”

In all his life, Din had never heard anyone talk so much, and for so long, as Neh'naa did as he and Ellis followed her back through the streets. In about five minutes, he knew the names of everyone in her family. In ten, he knew most of the gossip and drama. (“Sih'tuu isn't really that bad—she's just cranky because Uncle Jo'tepp isn't paying his bills again because he's a low-life who leeches off of everyone around him.”) And by the time they reached Neh'naa's front door, he knew why she was a member of the Guild. A patron of the baths had made a crude joke at her—something about what she could potentially do with her lekku.

“Stabbed him in the shoulder with a fork,” she continued as she pulled a keycard out of her pocket. “Yeah, that's when we decided I wasn't exactly cut out for...customer service.”

She held the keycard up to the scanner and opened the door as she kept on.

“Now I just help out in the back, mixing the herbs and salves and stuff. Took a pretty heavy pay cut, though, so I decided to take advantage of my history of stabbing people and joined the Guild.”

Neh'naa's gaze snapped to a figure lying prone on a ragged couch by the door, completely covered by a thick blanket. With an angry huff, she nudged the leg hanging out from under the blanket.

When that produced no reaction besides a sleepy groan, she bent down and ripped off the blanket. A mop of tangled black hair emerged, and underneath it, a disgruntled face.

“Naaaaynah, wha' thuh—”

“Wake up! We have people!”

The young man on the couch slapped his hands onto his face as he swung his legs off the couch and let a string of nearly-unintelligible swear words fall from his mouth.

“What time is it?” His voice was thick with trying to remember how to string words together after a long, deep sleep, abruptly interrupted.

Neh'naa scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“You mean what day?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

The young man's bleary eyes found Ellis and gave them a loose salute, with Ellis returning the gesture. Then the young man spotted Din and squinted through the haze of a hangover.

“Who's that?”

“This is Mando,” Ellis introduced Din with a gesture. “He's working with us on this job. Mando, this is Tobalas.”

Meanwhile, Neh'naa turned toward the rest of the room and threw her hands up in the air. To be fair, her frustration was warranted, at least in Din's mind. Clothes in varying styles lay strewn on the floor, and what must have been the dining table was littered with half-empty cups and bottles mingled with data-tape containers. Neh'naa set about shifting the contents of the table to the counter next to a rusty sink.

Tobalas, meanwhile, shifted over on the couch.

“You can go ahead and sit...somewhere, Mando.”

“Sorry about the mess,” Neh'naa said, setting down a bottle with a little more force than necessary.

“Hey, you live here, too. Maker knows I don't read those stupid data-tapes you leave all over the place.”

“And Maker also knows _I_ don't drink. You, on the other hand—”

“Enough, you two,” Ellis intervened once again. “We've got business.”

Tobalas rolled his eyes.

“What business? We haven't had a job good enough to call 'business' since that Toydarian hotshot faking his own kidnapping.”

Ellis sat by the half-cleared table, and Neh'naa followed suit, sitting at the edge of the chair, gaze fixed firmly on Ellis as they spoke.

“Karga has given us a big one this time, to be completed immediately.”

“Oh, yeah? How big?”

Ellis raised an eyebrow.

“50,000.”

Neh'naa's eyes went wide.

“50,000?” she repeated, emphasizing each syllable.

“Each.”

Tobalas gave a low whistle and fell back onto the couch. Neh'naa's voice ratcheted up a few decibels.

“Are you kidding me? For what?”

Ellis cast a pointed look at Tobalas, conveying something that Din didn't have the context to fully understand.

“BZ-3484.”

Any lingering symptoms of a hangover vanished from Tobalas as his spine stiffened. The new glint in his eye looked like it could cut someone.

“A Stormtrooper.” His voice dripped with venom and a subdued, dark excitement. “We're going after a Stormtrooper.”

“Hell yeah!” Neh'naa exclaimed, nearly jumping from her seat.

“He's not just some infantry Trooper,” Ellis said, tone cautionary. “He's special ops. This isn't going to be some easy, make-it-up-as-we-go kind of deal—not like our usual. This guy's most likely taken his armor off, probably looks just like anyone else.”

Din was unprepared for how familiar that idea sounded. Ellis continued.

“That anonymity is going to be tough to figure out. If we bring in the wrong guy, I'm pretty sure our client isn't going to be happy, which could create even more problems, considering they're Republic.”

Tobalas shifted uncomfortably on the couch, his eyes shifting to where Din stood, leaning against the doorframe. 

“But beyond that,” Ellis continued, “we might not even know we've found him until it's too late. This guy worked security, so whatever base he's got set up for himself is probably both off the radar and armed to the teeth.”

“So what's the plan?” Tobalas interrupted.

“We try to be discreet.” All eyes turned to Din. “We make this quick without giving ourselves away. If anybody figures out we're bounty hunters, word will get around, and he'll either bolt and create more work for us, or he'll try to take us out, which would make it hard to bring him in alive.”

“So we split up when we get there. You and Neh'naa, me and Mando. Soon as anyone gets a lead, we meet back at the rendezvous point and go from there. Make sense?”

Both Neh'naa and Tobalas nodded.

“All right. Let's kick some ass, people,” Ellis said, standing as if to leave. Neh'naa sprang up and grabbed a rucksack, slinging it over her shoulder. “You ready to go, Mando?”

Several months ago, Din would have said 'yes' without hesitation. He had his weapons, ammo, a few ration bars stashed in a pocket on his belt; he would have been ready to leave in a minute or less. But that was before—before a little green child appeared on his radar, before a kind woman and her own daughter completed the family he never knew he would have.

“Not yet.”

“Why not?” Tobalas looked at him from the corner of his eye, voice filled with suspicion. “Bounty says ASAP.”

“I've got business here until tomorrow morning.”

Tobalas stood, arms crossing over his chest.

“Business important enough to delay a 50,000 credit bounty?”

_Yes._

“Twenty-four hours isn't going to kill the trail,” Ellis cut through the tension, gesturing for Tobalas to stand down. “Do what you've got to do, Mando. We'll be ready when you are.”

Din couldn't be sure, but the lopsided smile Ellis gave him seemed to know the significance of the business that kept him on the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! Not much Mandomera content in this chapter, but I hope you still enjoyed it. I loved writing these new voices, and I'm looking forward to sharing the rest of Phase One of this story.  
> As always, leave your comments below, and don't be shy--I welcome your constructive criticism!  
> Fight the good fight, and I'll see you next week. :)


	3. Cracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some fractures start appearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, y'all—it's an Angsty Boi today. Special thanks to Nikibogwater for reading it ahead of time. Go give her stuff a read!

Omera weighed the only vegetable she could find—a small, lumpy melon of some kind—with a critical hand, tested every soft crater that should have been firm, every crack that should have been smooth. She didn't dare to smell it, because she knew and despised the sweetness, the sickliness of rot. Her luck—the only vegetable in the market, and it was unfit for consumption even by livestock.

She bought it anyway, passing two credits to the vendor, sitting cross-legged on a blanket.

“Mama, I don't want to eat that.” Omera was grateful Winta had waited until they were out of earshot of the vendor. Even if her criticism of his wares was entirely accurate, she hadn't raised Winta to be rude.

“We're not eating it.” Omera gently dropped the melon into the bag in the crook of her elbow, hoping it didn't crack open, spilling putrefying guts onto the other, perfectly serviceable food she'd been able to find. “We're going to take the seeds from it and grow our own.”

Before Omera could even offer her hand, Winta was unballing her fist from Omera's skirt and snatching for her grasp. Her hand clenched with more force than Omera could have expected, and in spite of herself, she flinched.

“Easy, sweetheart. We're almost done.”

Winta's grip loosened by the tiniest of margins.

From the sling across her chest, the baby gave a little whimper and burrowed closer to her. Omera's hand found his back and patted it as the child continued to fuss. Under her breath, she murmured soothing little nothings in the hope of calming him until she could get home and rock him. The baby's fist closed on the silver pendant that hung low around his neck and brought it to his mouth, where he nervously started chewing on it.

_ Will he have to swear the Creed, too? _

The voice that brought that thought into Omera's head sounded like her own. But the steeling in her gut at the thought was certainly not a familiar feeling. Before, she'd hardly felt anything about the idea of the child swearing the Creed, aside from a twinge of humor when she thought of how small the child's armor would have to be, or how his helmet would have to have holes for his ears. But now, the possibility of the child growing up to be a warrior had become more real.

Winta.

And all of a sudden, in the midst of the subdued bustle of the monochrome market street, the earthy heat under Omera's footsteps, the jostle of her bag slipping from her shoulder and jerking into her elbow, the baby's intensifying cries, the Armorer's words struck home.

Winta.

_ Her _ Winta.

A Mandalorian.

Omera glanced at the little girl by her side and, for the span of a blink, her face wasn't there—only a facsimile of Din's helmet. Her beautiful face, the face that Omera had watched through all its phases, from the red, wrinkled brow of a newborn, to the chubby, rosy cheeks bedecked with her kisses, to the sparkling, mischievous grin as she ran out into the morning after finishing her chores, one last kiss on the forehead before she went to play, one last kiss at night before that lively face fell into sleepy tranquility, one last kiss before she herself laid down in her bed and thanked the stars for giving her something so beautiful in the midst of so much pain, so much tragedy—for giving her a flower that would never fade, that stayed through all the seasons, that was so beautiful that sometimes, it broke her heart—all that history, all that beauty, hid from her sight.

_ No _ .

“No what, Mama?”

Omera sucked in a breath. She'd said it out loud. Damn.

“Nothing, sweetheart. Nothing.”

There had to be some way. Omera had been given the choice of swearing the Creed, and the Armorer had given some vague reasoning for why Winta didn't have a choice, but even so, there had to be some way for Winta to have that freedom. She could still be a Mandalorian—that came with Din, and she had accepted that the minute she decided to go with him—but surely even the Mandalorians had farmers, weavers, homemakers; surely not every Mandalorian was charging off into the stars to face down fate. Winta had already been through that. A repressed memory of her, laying limp, pale, soaked to the bone at the feet of an Imperial officer, without even the energy to shiver, stabbed into Omera's gut like a knife, the echoes of Winta's screams as Din closed the wound in her side plunged that knife further, and the keening sigh she'd made before hitting the floor of the forge, twisted that knife so far that when they got home, Omera was certain she would find blood all over her dress, the baby's sling, the baby, on her hands, on Winta's hands,  _ no no no no— _

“Mama, you're hurting my hand.”

Omera gasped. How long had they been standing still?

Despite her own desire, she loosened her grip on Winta's hand.

“Sorry, baby.”

“Are you okay?”

For her children, Omera found that she could certainly pretend.

/////

The baby was still keening.

“Winta, sweetheart, could you put the food in that crate over there?”

“Mm-hm.” The weight of the bag left her arm as Omera pulled the baby out of his sling and nestled him against her chest. Almost immediately, she settled into a rhythm of patting his back and rocking him from one side to the other, bouncing ever so slightly on the balls of her feet as she made a slow progress around their living quarters.

“Shh, shh. It's okay, little love. It's okay. I'm right here.” Whatever comfort that gave, Omera couldn't help but feel that she wasn't the parent he wanted attention from.

“Hi, Daddy!”

As if on cue, Din appeared in the doorway, removing his helmet after making sure he wasn't being watched.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Din replied as he crouched and pulled Winta into his arms, lifting her in the air and swinging her before setting her back down. The giggle Winta let out, and the cheerfulness of Din's tone brought a light streak into the ever-darkening clouds. On noticing his father's entrance, the baby's cries softened to little whines.

“See?” Omera smiled down at him. “It's okay. Daddy came back.”

“And I always will.” Din wrapped his arms around Omera's from behind and pressed a kiss to her temple, nuzzling against her as they both rocked the baby.

“Good news, I'm guessing?”

Din grunted his confirmation.

“Got a job—a hell of a job,  _ cyar'ika _ .”

Din moved around to her front and ran his hands up and down her arms. There was a spark in his eyes that Omera could call either excitement or hope—either way, it anticipated.

“A job so good,” Din continued, “that when I get back, the first thing we're doing is buying a house. Not renting—buying.”

The baby had stilled enough to where Omera felt comfortable setting him on his own two feet. The minute she did, though, the baby reached up to Din and made his 'pick me up' gesture. Din, of course, obliged. With a half-smile, Omera remembered some advice her mother had given her when she first found out she was pregnant: “A baby that's always on the hip will never leave.”

“What kind of job could give us that many credits?” Omera swept over to where Winta was supposed to be packing away the food, but had since forgotten and wandered over to her corner with her toys.

“A 50,000 credit bounty.”

Omera nearly dropped the box of rations in her hands. She fumbled in the air in an attempt to catch it until Din caught it in his unoccupied hand. He chuckled, but it barely registered in Omera's head as it reeled around the price.

“Oh, my stars,” she breathed.

“Yeah.  _ That _ good.” Din tucked the box of rations into the crate, and Omera reached into the bag to get more.

“That's...incredible, Din. But...”

“But what?”

Omera paused as she packed more into the crate, trying to figure out how to approach the suspicion starting to grow in the back of her mind.

“What kind of job pays that much?”

When she looked up to try and meet his eye, Din avoided her under the guise of attending to the content child as he cooed in his arms.

“...It's nothing.”

Omera huffed.

“Din, you don't just get paid that much for nothing.”

“Really, it's nothing. I don't want you to worry, that's all.”

“Why would I worry if it's nothing?”

Din slowly set the child down, and as he tottered across the room to play with his sister, Din took a deep breath, let it out again—bracing himself for Omera could only guess what.

“A Stormtrooper.”

“... _ What _ ?”

“Mama?”

“In a minute, Winta,” she threw the comment over her shoulder, but her eyes remained fixed on Din, still braced, shoulders tense.

“What do you mean, 'a Stormtrooper'?”

“I mean,” Din explained, “that the Republic is paying me to hunt down an ex-Stormtrooper.”

_ There's no such thing as an ex-Stormtrooper _ , Omera almost snipped.  _ And there's no such thing as the right side when both made so many mistakes. The Republic has no cleaner hands than the Empire—the Empire was just more open about the lives they took—the Republic's Rebellion didn't do anything when the Empire built the Death Star, when they let my home, my family, my husband, get blown to nothingness— _

“Say something.”

“I...don't know what to say.”

Din let out a humorless breath of air and gestured to Omera's lap.

“I know that's not true.”

Omera looked down and saw that her skirt now held both her own wrinkles and wrinkles the shape of Winta's fingers. Din loosened the clenched fingers one at a time and tried to take her hand, but she just kept unpacking the bag and repacking the crate, moving as quickly, and as chaotically, as her thoughts.

“Din, how long have we spent getting the Imperials off our trail? How many planets have we been to? How many times have we packed up and moved on?”

“I know, and—”

“And why did we do that? Because those monsters are a danger to us and our children, especially our son. And now, your first job back, and you're right back into it?”

“Omera, I—”

“Mama?”

“In a minute, Winta—play with little brother. Din,” she turned her attention back to him, then to the bag, taking out the rotting melon, trying to figure out where to put it. “what if your target, this Stormtrooper, worked for Moff Gideon? What if he's just one of a hundred Imperials who will come after you—after us—after our children, after our son—when this bounty's through? What happens then?”

Din's gaze snapped up to her, with a pained sort of intensity.

“Do you think I would have agreed to this job if I thought it would put our family at risk?”

“No.” And she believed it. She really did. But Omera also knew Din's altruism, and how quickly it could turn destructive. “I just also know that you want to provide the best for us—only the best. But we'll be okay here for a while longer—you don't have to take this job. We don't need the best right now.”

“But I see how you and the kids are doing down here.” The melon in Omera's hands was starting to leak, sticky, sickening. “And I want to get you somewhere you can breathe easier. I promise you, I wouldn't have taken this bounty if I knew it would endanger our family. Besides, it's a Republic hire. I don't trust them either, don't get me wrong. But they might be allies to us if the Imps rally again to try and find us. They might offer us protection.”

“Or they might try to use our son, too.” She hated how her voice shook.

“Mama—”

“ _ What _ , Winta?” The melon crumbled in Omera's hands as she snapped, her hands clenching into fists full of slimy, seedy pulp. The minute she felt the guts in her hands, Omera nearly vomited—stars, the  _ smell _ . The nausea spurred by the heady scent of rot, the guilt of losing her temper for the first time in recent memory, and the overwhelming sense of inadequacy threatened to overtake her. 

But Din swept into action. Through the rushing sound in her ears, she vaguely heard Din tell Winta to get some towels, and one of Omera's other dresses. He scooped the mess out of Omera's lap with his still-gloved hands and into an empty box nearby.

“Keep the seeds,” she said faintly, pressing her wrist to her mouth to try and stave off anything that might come up. She closed her eyes and heard the wet slap of his soiled gloves hitting the floor. Moments later, she felt the brush of Din's bare fingers as he moved her hair aside and laid a cool cloth on the back of her neck. She heard Din tell her to take a deep breath, and she did so to the best of her ability. Another soft towel wiped gently at her hands as Din asked Winta what she needed. She heard her reply: she was just hungry.

“I'm sorry, sweetheart,” she mumbled.

“It's okay, Mama. You'll be okay.”

How did she know?

The crinkling of a ration bar wrapper traveled from her side back to Winta's corner. The red stars swimming behind her eyelids refused to let up. Her hands were almost clean, but Maker only knew how the smell would linger unless—of course, Din had thought of that. She felt a cool liquid run down her hands as Din massaged them, making sure to eliminate any evidence of the incident. Her breath caught in her throat at the softness of his touch, at the kindness of the gesture.

“Omera, look at me.”

Omera slowly blinked her eyes open to meet his, dark as obsidian, but so much kinder.

“I promise you that this job will not endanger our family.”

“...And if it does?”

“Then I'll take care of it. Personally.”

A glint of danger in his eye reminded her of the other things his hands could do. They weren't always used for rubbing scented oil into her hands. Sometimes, they were used for more sinister things that she preferred not to imagine.

“Besides,” he continued, pressing a kiss to her newly-cleaned hands, “I won't be alone. I'm working with a team.”

“And you know them? You trust them?”

“Enough.”

Enough. Just enough. She fought her own discomfort by trying to channel Din's certainty, his self-assurance.

“...When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

So soon. Omera's heart plummeted, but she tried to make its fall appear slower.

“All right, then.”

Din's nose rubbed against hers as he brought her into a keldabe kiss. His voice turned gravelly as he lowered it into a whisper.

“After this,  _ cyar'ika _ , I'll be able to take some time off. I'll help us get settled in a house, fix it up just the way we want it. The four of us will sit around a table, eat our meals together. We'll get to play with our kids, actually play with them. And some mornings...some mornings, you and I will get to sleep in. And I'll get to hold you...kiss you all you want until the kids wake up. Won't that be nice?”

Not even in her dreams did Omera think she would hear those words spoken back to her. She replied in kind.

“...It would.”

Din's lips pressed against her forehead, and Omera found herself wishing they were in that future already, where if they closed their eyes long enough, they could forget about the rest of the universe—where they could breathe at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! That was a doozy to write, but worth it. I hope you liked it. Don't be shy with the comments, keep fighting the good fight, and I'll see you on Wednesday for the Mid Week Round-Up over on Tumblr. 😊


	4. Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Din and his new teammates share space and reach their destination.

The decision to take Ellis's ship had been relatively easy. Since neither Neh'naa nor Tobalas had a ship of their own, and the Razor Crest had picked up a lot of attention from Imperials, threatening their mission, taking the Hawk's Eye was a foregone conclusion. Still, as Din approached the ship as it blinked in the pre-dawn darkness, he couldn't help but wish he were in more familiar territory.

The Hawk's Eye was a small freighter that Din guessed had been constructed just after the Clone Wars. But if Din wasn't so familiar with ships, he would never have guessed its age. Ellis had maintained the outside of the ship beautifully, to the point where Din almost wondered if it had seen any firefight, and as Din entered the hull, he was taken aback by how comfortable it looked. Tobalas already sprawled on a plush banquette behind a large table, reaching for a steaming mug and tipping it in wordless greeting before he slowly lifted it to his lips. A long couch wrapped around the opposite corner of the hull, with several pillows and blankets carefully placed for use. The walls were hung with strange, colorful tapestries, picked up from a life's worth of galaxy-wide travel. But for as warm and admittedly inviting as the Hawk's Eye looked, Din felt a shiver shudder across his shoulders.

Tobalas scoffed.

“Yeah, the blankets aren't just for decoration. Ellis keeps it cold as a carbon freezer in here.”

“It's not that bad.” The door to the cockpit swung open and Ellis stepped out, leaning on the doorframe. “And even if it was—my house, my rules.”

“Sorry I'm late!” Neh'naa bustled onto the ship, jostling with some bottles as she tried to wrangle them into her knapsack.

“You're not the only one,” Tobalas commented as he threw a still-sleepy gaze at Din. “Who'd've thought I'd be the one to get here on time?”

Though he normally prided himself on punctuality, Din felt satisfied with his reason for being late.

“Yeah, well,” Neh'naa kept on and plopped into a chair by Tobalas before Din could lean into that memory, “I had to pick up a few things from the baths.”

“Oh, are we going to aromatherapy our Stormtrooper into submission?” Tobalas's barb came with no fangs as he gave Neh'naa a teasing smile and offered her his cup. She took it and sipped daintily at its contents.

“Just for that, you can do your own wound care.”

Tobalas leaned back, putting his hands in the air.

“Who says I'm going to get wounded?”

“See, you say that every time. And every time, you come back to the ship looking like you've been run over by a herd of blurrgs. And every time, you insist, 'Oh, no, I've got this, Neh'naa, it's not that bad, your herb stuff smells weird,' et cetera—”

“I do _not_ sound like that.”

“And then,” Neh'naa continued, brushing off Tobalas's objection, “who shows up in the middle of the night a few days later saying, 'Neh'naa, does this look infected?' And it does. It always does. So, one of these days, just one, I would like to skip those intermediate steps and hear you admit one thing: you need my help.”

“All right, all right. If you two are done, settle in. We're taking off in one.” Ellis turned back into the cockpit, and Din felt an innocuous dread creep into his body as he wished he could join them. He moved to the couch on the other side of the hold, carefully moved a few pillows, and sat, hoping to become invisible.

“Hi, Mando!”

Damn it. Din gave Neh'naa as polite a nod as he could manage. Neh'naa inclined her head, giving him a sympathetic smile.

“Not a morning person, huh?”

“To be fair,” Tobalas muttered to Neh'naa, “I don't think he's a people person, either. Don't push it.”

“They're really not my thing.”

Both Neh'naa and Tobalas looked at him, confused.

“Mornings?” Tobalas asked. “Or people?”

Din had never been more grateful or resigned to hear a ship gearing up for takeoff.

/////

How had he let the gas canister couplet get this grimy? No wonder he wasn't getting as many charges from his fuel. Din picked the couplet out of the deconstructed blaster parts on the couch cushion next to him and set to work, soaking a spot on his worn-out cleaning rag with carbon solvent and rubbing it on the couplet. The carbon build-up dissolved with little effort, but Din kept at it with the rag anyway. He hoped he appeared busy, though he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep the charade up.

Thankfully, Neh'naa and Tobalas had left him to his own devices in the hour since takeoff. They didn't annoy him, per se. He found Neh'naa likable, if far chattier than he was used to in a coworker. And Tobalas seemed competent, in his own, almost too-relaxed way. But they had both been right. Neither mornings nor people were 'his thing'.

Although...he had recently been warming up to mornings since they included waking up next to his favorite person in the galaxy.

Din couldn't help but shiver again, not so much due to the cold, but more due to the contrast of the ship's climate to his and Omera's bed. Sure, Ellis had made the Hawk's Eye as cozy as he'd ever seen a ship, or imagined a ship to be. But nothing could compare to the space he and Omera had made for themselves in a rickety bed in the middle of a sparse one-room living space without so much as a door.

That morning in particular had been difficult. With the repetitive motions of cleaning his blaster, he fell into remembering.

_As he surfaced into consciousness, Din felt Omera's fingers graze across his cheek, still perfumed from the previous day—honeyblossom and musk rose water. His eyes slid open to meet hers, untouched by sleep. The smile she gave him was so tinted with melancholy, even in the darkness, that he closed the centimeter gap between them to try and take it away. The brushing of their lips became a long, lingering series of soft kisses distinctive in their half-asleep sweetness._

_“Stay.”_

_Din's heart tugged, tried to get out of his chest to rest with Omera's, to stay in this moment of perfection in the midst of the struggle. He pressed his forehead to hers, brought the hand that had been on her hip to her jaw, and found the sweet spot behind her ear._

_“Soon.”_

_As he pulled his hand away, Omera grabbed it._

_“Five more minutes?”_

_He'd be late. He shouldn't have slept this long, anyway. But the night just before the sunrise was so cold, and beneath the blankets, next to the woman he loved,_ _he realized that he owed the world_ nothing.

“ _Why not ten?”_

_As much as he loved to watch the tender smile cross Omera's lips, he preferred to kiss them, wrap his arms around her, pull her in so close that every curve of her body slotted into every line of his, every ounce of their combined warmth working in unison to stave off the sun, ward off the day to come..._

“Mando!”

Din's face jerked toward the table across the hold where Neh'naa was waving at him. The muscle-memory of Omera's arms around him started to fade, much to his annoyance.

“What?” He winced—she probably didn't deserve a tone that harsh. Probably.

Neh'naa shrank a little, and her face turned downcast.

“I was just trying to ask you if you wanted to play a round of sabacc.”

Great. Now she looked like a kicked loth cat kitten. Din quickly modified his tone.

“No, thank you.” Neh'naa lightened a little with his more polite reply. “Not much of a card-player.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Tobalas asked as he leaned in, “What  _do_ you do?”

Din looked down at the disassembled blaster, the parts in his hands, gestured vaguely.

“My job,” he replied.

Tobalas quirked a skeptical eyebrow.

“You literally just go out, pick up bounties, bring them back, repeat?”

Din nodded.

“Interesting.” Tobalas's tone was so deadpan that Din didn't know if he actually found his habits interesting, or if he was trying to communicate some subconscious level of criticism. Unable to decide, Din settled for turning back to the work of reassembling his blaster.

“All right, Neh'naa. What's your in?” Tobalas asked with the slap of sabacc cards shuffling against a table. Neh'naa considered for a moment.

“Five credits and...a sandwich from Nell's.”

“You already have five sandwiches in the pot.” 

The cards drummed against the table again as Neh'naa replied.

“So, you're going to complain if you win six sandwiches from our favorite diner?” 

Were the cards getting louder as they shuffled?

“No, but I'm just saying—” the cards buzzed against the table once again as Din clicked the muzzle back to the barrel—“you might want to start expanding your horizons a bit on your antes.”

“Oh yeah?” The cards again—seriously, how many times did a deck of cards have to get shuffled between games? “What's yours?”

“Um...” Tobalas mercifully stopped shuffling and rummaged in his pockets as Din finished reconstructing his blaster, slipping it into its holster.

“Three credits, a couple druggats, and...this really cool rock.”

Din closed his eyes, tried to center his thoughts.

“A rock.”

“It's not just a rock, though. Look at it. It's cool.”

“You're betting a rock.”

_A rock. Oh,_ ka'ra _, they're going to argue over a rock._

“Look, do you want a chance to win this really cool, shiny rock or not?”

“It's not even a little bit shiny.”

_Omera's eyes shone in the fading starlight as she bid him farewell._

“It will be if you polish it.”

_For luck. All my love._

“I'm not going to polish your stupid—”

Din stood faster than he needed to and strode to the cockpit, knocking on the door then easing it open.

“See? You scared him off,” he heard Neh'naa snap before he closed the door behind him.

From the pilot's seat, Ellis turned a quarter and gave a low laugh.

“Figured you'd join me eventually. They starting up their sabacc game?”

Din breathed a sigh of relief and sat in a passenger seat, taking in the familiarity of a pilot's view—an endless field of white silently rushing past them at lightspeed.

“Yeah, they've had the same game going for a year now,” Ellis continued, returning their attention to the controls. “Neither of them likes to admit when they lose, so they just keep playing. The bets are getting ridiculous.”

“One of them bet a rock.”

Ellis nodded sagely.

“Sounds about right.”

As eager as he was to return to some semblance of quiet, Din couldn't help but ask something that had nagged at the back of his mind since he'd met the team.

“How the hell did you end up with them, anyway?”

Ellis shrugged.

“They applied to join the Guild at the same time about a year ago. You were off-world on a long bounty, so Karga asked me to break them in, instead. We just kind of stuck together after that. They're good kids,” they added, looking over their shoulder at Din and approximately meeting his eyes behind his visor, “and they're actually pretty good at this. They're just...green.”

“Literally. Well, at least, one of them.”

Ellis chuckled. “So he does have a sense of humor.”

And to Din's immense relief, they fell into silence. 

As he watched the lightyears pass outside the window, Din's breaths started coming deeper, more rhythmically. The intermittent shouts from the hull and the whirring of the controls in the cockpit faded into white noise. Layer by layer, with careful intention, Din let his thoughts fall away. He forgot the two young bounty hunters. He forgot the pilot in the chair. He took the memories of a deceptively innocent-looking son with all his strange power, a brave, curly-haired daughter, a beautiful woman who knew his face, who loved him—he took those treasures and carefully locked them all away, heirlooms to be taken out and used again when the danger passed. 

The final thought, the final image—he looked Din Djarin in the eye and watched as the gentle, caring father slowly faded into the background.

“We're coming out of lightspeed. Brace yourselves.”

Mando hadn't noticed that Ellis left their seat until they returned. After pushing a few buttons, they buckled themselves into their seat and pulled the steering back. Mando braced himself against his seat and the floor as the white field jerked back into individual stars around a planet that threw a Din Djarin memory into the front of his consciousness—a marketplace, a fluttering blue canopy hanging over a bounty of flowers, a weapons enthusiast who gleefully traded a rare seed for a vintage slugthrower.

“Ilian.”

“Yeah. You been here before?”

Mando stood and leaned forward on the control panel, looking at the nav screen as it revealed their coordinates on the planet below and confirmed the familiar destination.

“I've got a contact here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dramatic music cue*
> 
> So, yeah, if you haven't read "The Journey On," I would give chapter four a quick read. It's about to become relevant to the main plot...
> 
> Not so much action in this chapter, but I promise it's coming. Next week, we check back in with Omera and the kids on Nevarro, then afterward, it's all bounty-hunting action for a few weeks. Buckle in. :)
> 
> ANNOUNCEMENT! A while ago, I wrote my senior thesis on fanfiction as a legitimate literary genre, and asked for your input. Well, tomorrow, July 12, 2020, at 4 PM EST, I will be posting that project over on my Tumblr (@poetryinmotion-author)! If you have any interest in a 15-page academic take on why fanfiction matters, hop on over tomorrow and give it a read. Hope you like it :)
> 
> As always, don't be shy with your comments and questions!! Reading them gives me All the Life!
> 
> Fight the good fight, and I'll see you over on Tumblr and YouTube for the Mid Week Round-Up on Wednesday!


	5. Forge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which connections are forged in unlikely places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends!  
> I am so sorry this chapter's a day late. I posted an update on my Tumblr about it (tag in my profile), but Cliff Notes version: this week has been a really bad one for my EDS and chronic pain. I ended up having to take yesterday to rest. Not to worry, though. This week's schedule is the same as it's always been. Enjoy this chapter, leave a comment, and I'll see you on Wednesday for Mid Week Round-Up! :)

Omera tucked the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth as she maneuvered the needle and stabbed it through the cloth once again. It was a tough seam to fix, what with the curvature and the thickness of the material. It lay along the edge where the high collar attached to the rest of the spare flak vest—or it would have, if it hadn't slowly come apart. Din had clearly patched it himself several times. Or, at least, he had made an attempt. Even now, having removed all the previous work, Omera still came across stitches that remained, crooked and crude, stubbornly tangled with the fabric. She smiled a little at that. She held in her hands a little manifestation of the man she loved: tough, a little frayed around the edges, but ultimately sincere.

With a final backstitch, Omera pulled the thread taut and knotted it twice for good measure. After cutting off the thread and sticking the needle back into her small burlap pincushion, she held the vest level with her eye and scanned for any gaps. The seam she'd repaired was at a crucial juncture. Any possible gap that an enemy could take advantage of was as good as if Din wore no armor at all. She brought the vest closer and put her fingers under the new seam, satisfied that she saw no flashes of her skin through the stitching.

_ This will keep him safe. _

Something pulled at the edge of the flak vest—or someone. Omera looked down at the bed next to her and smiled. The baby had pulled the hem of the shirt over his head, and his ears stuck out comically through the fabric.

“I don't think this is going to fit you, little one,” she told him as she pulled the shirt off of his head. The baby whined, his ears drooping as his fists gripped the fabric. He pulled it back and burrowed his face into the shirt, his ears lifting ever so slightly, then lowering again.

Omera's shoulders sagged. Her hand came to the back of the baby's head as she stroked his downy hair with her thumb.

“Yes, I know. I miss him, too.” It had only been half a day, but Omera could guess at what the baby was feeling. There had been many mornings in her own childhood when she had woken up to find her father gone on business without a proper goodbye. Granted, her father's work as a merchant had been much less treacherous than Din's. She could always be certain that her father would return with some little trinkets for her and her siblings to make up for his absence. This child, however...

Gathering the flak vest in her hands, Omera pulled it over the baby's head, gently manipulating his wide ears so they fit through the collar. She couldn't help but laugh; the poor thing was swamped by his father's clothes, with only the upper half of his face emerging from the shirt. But Omera watched a light grow in his eyes as his ears perked back up. She pulled the collar down with her forefinger so the rest of his face emerged, and was satisfied to see a smile on his little mouth.

“Looks a little big on him.”

Omera's attention snapped to the doorway, her guard immediately falling when she recognized the woman leaning on the doorframe.

“He'll grow into it,” she joked as Cara entered the room. She watched as Cara surveyed the room for a moment before her gaze landed on Winta, working with intense concentration on a complex-looking puzzle box. She cracked a smile.

“Hey, Winta.” No response.

“Winta?” Omera called. Again, nothing—the rest of the world could have been dead to Winta for all she knew. “Winta.”

The firmer tone finally snagged Winta from her task. Her face jerked up to meet Omera's gaze, then shifted to where Cara stood.

“Oh. Hi, Cara.” Her duty done, Winta turned back to her previous task, brow furrowing once again.

Omera watched Cara's look change from mild amusement at Winta's laser focus to a mildly-veiled concern. Before she could mention it, Omera changed the direction of the conversation.

“How did you know where to find us?”

“Mando asked me to come check on you.”

That man—looking out for them even when he wasn't there. Omera smiled, bashfully lowering her head.

“Of course he did.”

“Which, can I just say I called it?” Cara said in a confident, chiding way. “You and him. Ages ago.”

Omera leaned into Cara's tone, straightening herself up and holding her head high.

“Did you, now?”

Cara rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Omera, I think the entire village could see the eyes he was making at you through that bucket on his head. What happened? Did he finally break down your door and beg you to run away with him?”

_ I wish.  _ The levity that had risen up in her slowly deflated.

“...Not exactly.”

“So what happened?”

From where she sat on the ground, Winta growled in frustration and slammed the puzzle down on the permacrete, tugging at the braid Omera had set that morning.

“Winta! What's wrong?” Omera asked, startled by the outburst of aggression.

Winta stared daggers at the offending puzzle box.

“It's too hard.”

Omera took a breath to steady herself. Cara wanted to know the full story—but Winta didn't need to hear it again.

“Sweetheart, why don't you go play...” Omera moved to the door as she gestured for Winta to come to her side, “out here. Stay within earshot—no further than that pillar there. Understand?”

“Yes, Mama,” Winta said, grabbing a small ball and exiting the room with one last look at Cara.

The veil covering Cara's worry lifted completely.

“Something went wrong.”

Omera swallowed hard before confirming.

“...Very.”

The story spilled out like a river freed from a dam. And as it came, Omera realized that she'd never verbalized the events that led her here. She had never needed to explain the story to someone on the outside looking in, because there never  _ was  _ an outsider to explain it to. But now, she wished she had had at least a chance to rehearse the details. The story wound around itself like a malformed coil, where every so often, despite her efforts to stick to a linear, factual retelling, she would sink into musing about what might have happened, what she wished had happened, reflecting, adding her own analysis. The story became someone else's—until she reached moments where the pain was still too tender, where Winta was unconscious, where the blade could have entered a little bit to the right, where her daughter could have...

Thankfully, Cara didn't let her linger there for long.

“And now you're here,” she said as Omera finished with a few happier anecdotes from their months on the run.

“And now we're here.”

Cara leaned back against the wall and stretched her legs out in front of her, letting out a low breath. The two women had ended up sitting on the floor with the baby between them, chewing on the sleeve of his father's flak vest. Omera clicked her tongue, taking the sleeve out of the baby's mouth and pulling him into her lap, pressing a kiss to the top of his wrinkled head.

“That's...a lot.”

Omera huffed humorlessly.

“That's an understatement.”

The two sat in silence for a moment, letting the story sink in. Cara was the first to break it.

“So you're telling me that Winta's going to be a Mando? A full-on Mando?”

Omera drew a shaky breath.

“...I don't know.”

Another brief silence ended when Cara shrugged.

“Could be good for her, you know.”

“What?”

“Training. Could help her work out some of this stuff. I know it helped me.”

Omera shifted so she was facing Cara directly, pulling the baby closer.

“How?”

Cara considered for a moment, bringing her knees up and resting her arms on them.

“Where I grew up,” she began, “I was the odd kid out. While all the other kids were raised to be artists and dancers and musicians, I was running around getting dirty. While the other kids were making friends, I was picking fights for fun.” Cara paused, composure dropping ever so slightly. “While every other kid I knew had a mom and a dad...”

Placing her hand on Cara's shoulder, Omera moved closer out of instinct, her actions expressing her sympathy better than her words ever could.

“Well,” Cara continued, “a scraped-up, rough-and-tumble orphan doesn't really fit with the image of Alderaan as a planet of peace and plenty.”

Omera started.

“Alderaan?”

Cara nodded, let out a sigh. Omera gave her shoulder a squeeze.

“I was born there,” she said. “Raised there.”

In that moment, Omera felt a kinship with the former Shocktrooper that she never could have expected—the kinship of those who have experienced the same exact loss. Cara met her eyes, and Omera was struck by just how young she looked.

“Then you know exactly what I'm talking about,” she continued. “I could see  _ you  _ there. You're all grace and poise and maternal instinct—quiet strength. That's the kind of strength everyone wanted from me, expected from me. And I tried. I really did. But I couldn't fight who I was. And I got hell for it, from everywhere, from everyone. There were times where I felt like the world had just...forgotten about me.”

After sinking into her thoughts for a moment, Cara shook her head, took a steadying breath.

“But then, I found my place. The Rebellion showed up in my town, recruiting, and I signed up, first chance I got. And during boot camp, I found out just what I was capable of. There were nights,” Cara laughed, “when I could barely walk to the fresher to clean up. But it was so worth it. I finally felt...secure. I felt powerful. I felt in control. And those are probably some things that Winta wants to feel, after everything that's happened. Training her might be the best way to give her that.”

Words didn't come to Omera's head then. Only the vague, dull shadow that told her that maybe, just maybe, she might have been wrong.

“And you know I'll help, too.”

“You will?”

Cara scoffed.

“Her training can't just stop because Mando's off-world. Learning to fight's all about consistency. Continual practice. Besides,” Cara leaned toward Omera, giving her a sly smile, “I might know some things he doesn't.”

Suddenly, Cara stiffened, the smile falling away as quickly as it came. Omera stiffened, arms automatically tightening around the baby.

“What is it?”

“...It's quiet out there.”

Omera stilled, shushed the baby's mumbling. Where there should have been the sounds of Winta playing, her footsteps, the sound of a ball hitting permacrete, there was silence.

The blood drained from Omera's head.

__ _ No. Not again. _

/////

There was only so much keepi-uppi one could play with oneself before they became completely, deeply, intolerably bored.

Winta sighed as she caught the ball and patted it back into the air—again. How long did she have to stay out here? She listened to the faint, unintelligable voices from down the hall, waiting to hear Mama call her name and tell her she could come back. Maybe she'd give the puzzle box another try. She ran the image of the box over again in her head. She'd been trying to figure it out for weeks, ever since Dad had picked it up for her when her favorite doll broke. By now, she practically had every inch of the box, every step memorized. And she always got so  _ close  _ to finishing it, too. She could feel it. Now she just needed to figure out the final step.

_ Press the button on the right side lower back corner. That makes a chunk of wood slide out the left side. Then rotate the dial on the lid once. That makes something click on the inside of the box. Then, you— _

A sudden hiss from behind startled Winta out of her thoughts, the ball ringing hollow against the ground as she dropped it. She whipped around—nothing behind her. At least, nothing immediately evident. But a slow, sluggish feeling crept into her stomach as she realized where the hiss had come from: the Armorer's room.

She tried to go back to her game.  _ Mama said to stay here. Mama said to stay within earshot. Mama said... _

The hissing stopped, only to be replaced by a loud clang that made Winta nearly jump out of her skin. And another one. And another.

The sluggish feeling crawled up from her stomach into her ribs, sticking there like tree sap. She couldn't name the feeling if she tried. But she knew one thing: finding out why the clanging noise was coming from the strange room with the skull over it was bound to be much more interesting than whatever game she was pretending to play.

_ Just for a second _ , she told herself as she tiptoed toward the noise.  _ Mama won't even realize I'm gone. _

Holding her breath, Winta peered around the corner. The Armorer's room emanated a stronger, brighter light than it had when she'd first seen it, centered around the tall, oddly-shaped table in the middle. And there was the Armorer. She held some kind of long tool in her hand, raising it, and bringing it back down.  _ Clang. _

_ Okay. That's what's making the noise. We can leave now. _

Winta turned the corner and darted behind one of the pillars, her eyes still trained on the Armorer.

_ Not yet. _

With her closer vantage point, Winta noticed sparks coming off of whatever it was the Armorer was hitting—metal, she assumed. White flecks of light sprayed every time the Armorer brought her arm down, with her...whatever it was.

Winta snuck closer until she was lingering just outside the door. Her eyes widened—that was a  _ wicked  _ looking hammer. She was sure that if she stretched her arms out as wide as she could, that hammer would still be longer. And it looked so  _ heavy _ . How was the Armorer  _ doing  _ that? How was she lifting it as if it weighed nothing at all? And how was it all so...entrancing? Why did it take her imagination captive like nothing had before?

A final ring sang through the silence as the Armorer stepped back, lowered the hammer to her side. Whatever was on the big table glowed in her visor for a moment before she turned away. And as she turned, she spoke.

“Enter when you wish, Winta.”

Dread clenched in the pit of Winta's stomach. Of their own accord, her legs straightened from her crouch and moved her under the skull, and into the Armorer's lair.

“You...knew I was here?”

The Armorer set down the hammer on a workbench with a dull thud and pulled down an enormous pair of tongs from a hook on the wall.

“When one is a warrior, it becomes necessary to be fuly aware of one's surroundings. I heard you as soon as you started playing your little game.”

Winta blushed and cradled one arm with the other. Her game of keepi-uppi suddenly felt childish, unimportant.

The Armorer turned back to her, balancing the tongs between her hands.

“How are you feeling?”

Suddenly reminded of her fainting incident, Winta's blush intensified. She had been weak. Why had she been weak in front of this towering, important, dangerous woman? And why did she care so deeply about what the Armorer thought of her?

“Okay, I guess.”

“You guess. Do you not know?”

_ No _ .

Something from under the Armorer's helmet—a sigh? She turned and hung the tongs back on the wall, then approached Winta. The Armorer went to her knees in her slow, methodical way, and Winta clumsily followed suit.

“We worried about you.”

“...You did?”

“Foundlings are our future. As you are a foundling in our tribe, I care for your well-being. It is a relief,” the Armorer said, inclining her helmet ever so slightly, “to see you well.”

Unable to put a response in her mouth, Winta inclined her head as well—a poor imitation of the Armorer's careful movement, as every fiber of her being trembled with something she couldn't name, but which she didn't dislike.

The Armorer's head tilted as if trying to get a better look at her.

“Do I frighten you?”

Perhaps a little too quickly, and a little too earnestly, Winta shook her head. And, as she feared, the Armorer saw right through her.

“Do not be ashamed. Fear can be a useful tool, Winta Djarin. If you know how to use it.”

Winta couldn't help but ask.

“How?”

The Armorer straightened, brought her hands into her lap.

“From what your father has told me, you already know.”

Winta's heart dropped.

“Dad told you?”

“Yes.”

But before Winta could feel ashamed that Dad had told the Armorer about her weakness, about how she let herself get taken instead of fighting them all off, the Armorer amended her statement.

“He is quite proud of you.”

Of course, Dad had told her that before. But knowing that he was telling other people that he was proud to call her his daughter hit her in the heart, splitting it open just a crack. The Armorer went on.

“The other children in your village would likely have succumbed to their fear in a situation like yours. They would have given in to any demands their captors made. And that would have led to the bloodshed of their clan. And yet,” the Armorer gestured to Winta, “you did not waver. Though you were afraid, you did not betray your clan. You used your fear instead of letting it consume you. You expressed the bravery of the Mandalore.”

Winta was taken aback—she'd never thought of it that way before. And again, she couldn't stop her question before it left her.

“But, she asked, “I was still scared. How can you be brave and scared at the same time?”

The Armorer paused for a long moment, and Winta hung on her bated breath.

“In order to be brave,” the Armorer finally answered, “it is often necessary to be absolutely terrified.”

A weight like a smooth, cool stone rolled down Winta's throat as she realized the implications of the Armorer's response. Dad was the bravest person she knew. She knew that Dad could take on anything and anyone, especially if it was to protect her, and Mama, and little brother. And yet, he was...scared? Under all his armor and weapons, he was  _ scared _ ?

If Dad could be brave and scared...maybe she could be, too.

“Why have you come here, Winta?”

Winta sucked in a breath after realizing she'd been holding it.

“I heard all the noise. I wanted to see what you were doing.”

The Armorer gave no outward response. In the full silence, Winta started to panic.

_ Did I say something wrong? Does she think I'm stupid? Does she think I'm too much of a kid? _

Wordlessly, the Armorer stood to her full height, and the doubts in Winta's head clamored louder.

_ She thinks I'm nosy. She thinks I'm rude. She's gonna kick me out— _

__ “Come.”

_ Here it comes,  _ Winta dreaded as she stood.  _ Here it comes. I'm gone— _

__ “Let me show you.”

Wait. She wasn't getting kicked out. She was...being invited?

She'd stayed here too long. Mama was bound to notice she was gone. She was going to get in trouble.

But the Armorer had invited her in.

Well. She could hardly say no, could she? It would be rude. And Mama had taught her to always be polite.

With a mix of trepidation and interest, Winta approached the workbench and ran her eyes over its contents. The hammer was even bigger up close, and the hook on the end of the head looked even more dangerous. And yet, something inside of Winta wanted to reach out, to touch it, to see if she could even try to lift it.

“These,” the Armorer said as she removed the tongs from their place once again, “are the tools of my trade. The hammer, and the forge.”

She turned to the big table—forge—in the center of the room. Winta followed as the Armorer crossed to the forge and lowered the tongs into its recess. The heat from the forge was almost too much for Winta to bear, but she stubbornly stayed by its side as the Armorer lifted her arms.

Between the tongs was clamped a piece of armor, cooled a little during their conversation. It looked like Dad's chestplate, with all the lines and hard edges, and the diamond in the middle. But it was much smaller than Dad's. In fact, Winta realized in shock, it looked to be about her size.

With a smooth, deliberate motion, the Armorer plunged the chestplate into a large drum of what looked to be oil. The air filled with crackling, boiling noise as the heat of the metal collided with the coolness of the liquid, until the Armorer pulled the chestplate out again. Dripping, the chestplate glistened against the forge fire as if it were covered in a sheen of sweat.

“By my hammer,” the Armorer's voice startled Winta out of her thoughts, “on the workbench, there is a file—a long, thin tool, about the size of your forearm. Bring it to me please.”

Winta did so with a speed that surprised not only the Armorer, but herself. Taking the file, the Armorer scraped it across the metal and watched it skate with no resistance.

Lifting the chestplate to eye level, the Armorer turned, once again, to Winta.

“This will protect you until you earn your full  _ beskar'gam _ when you come of age—as all the Mandalorians who came before you have done.”

“That's...for me?”

“Yes.” The Armorer went to her knees in front of Winta. “Hold still.”

And as the Armorer held the chestplate just above Winta's torso, Winta suddenly felt that there were thousands of eyes, thousands of people, thousands of warriors, watching her. She felt them crowding into the forge, pressing in around her, placing their hands on her shoulders, on her back, on her head. And even though, in her mind's eye, she could see none of their faces, she knew, by some instinct she'd never accessed before, that every face wore a look of pride.

“ _ Winta! _ ”

The moment dissolved as Mama rushed down the hall.

“There you are! You worried me sick!” Mama pulled Winta tightly into her arms, away from the Armorer—and her new chestplate.

“I am so sorry for the intrusion,” she apologized to the Armorer, who hadn't moved an inch. “I told Winta to stay just outside of our room. It won't happen again—will it, Winta?”

Instead of immediately agreeing with her mother, Winta looked to the Armorer—for what, she did not know. The Armorer stood to face Mama, lowering the chestplate to her side.

“She may return as often as she pleases. In fact, I would encourage it.”

And as the Armorer looked down at her, Winta felt, for the first time, that the Armorer was making direct eye contact with her.

“She has much to learn.”


	6. Chameleon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the nature of the bounty shifts.

As Ellis landed the Hawk’s Eye with the grace of a much smaller ship, Mando slipped out of the cockpit and back into the hull. The sabacc game had been abandoned in favor of individual preparation; Neh’naa sat spread out on the floor, bent double in a lengthy stretch, and twin blades flashed in Tobalas’s hands as he swung them around his body, getting reacquainted with their weight and recalibrating them with each other. 

_ Finally _ , Mando thought to himself.  _ Some professionalism. _

“All right, people, listen up.”

Ellis exited the cockpit and stood just above the lowered area of the hull, holding a datapad in their hand and pulling up a hologram of the city. The map hovered in the air, casting an electric blue tint into the warm colors of the Hawk’s Eye. Everyone in the cockpit stilled as Ellis laid out the plan.

“This is the last place our target was seen,” they continued as they manipulated the holo. “A pretty big city for this area, but it shouldn’t be too hard to navigate. Neh’naa, Tobalas, you two go out and get familiar with the land.”

“Where are you going to be?” Neh’naa asked.

“Mando says he’s got a contact here. He and I will meet with them and see if they know anything.”

Tobalas turned toward Mando, his gaze boring into the beskar.

“You think your contact knows something?”

Mando met his eye.

“I’d say it’s worth a shot.”

“It’s a start, at least,” Ellis concurred. “Better than just wandering into the cantina and asking questions. We don’t want to alert this guy that we’re here. So whatever you do, blend in. Got it?”

Everyone voiced their agreement.

“Right. Stagger exit—you two go first. If something comes up, use the comms. If not, we rendezvous back here at noon.”

As if unable to contain herself anymore, Neh’naa jumped and bolted toward the hatch.

“All right! Nevarro Three, out!”

Tobalas winced as he came to Neh’naa’s side. 

“Still under protest about that name.”

Pressing the button to lower the hatch and looping her arm through Tobalas’s, Neh’naa pulled a teasing face.

“You’ll get used to it,” she chirped, the effervescence in her voice so contagious that Tobalas couldn’t keep up his facade of annoyance as they exited the Hawk’s Eye and stepped into the dawn.

Mando leaned against the hatchway, watching the two younger bounty hunters as they wound their way toward the city. Though their gaits were easily identifiable—one of them practically skipped while the other loped along in the grass—their individual shadows blended into one as Ilian’s sun scraped the horizon. Eventually, they became one amorphous figure, until they faded into nothing between the outer buildings of the city.

“Before you ask,” Ellis interjected from behind him, “no, they’re not together.”

Mando huffed as he looked over his shoulder at them.

“Why would I ask?”

Ellis shrugged. Strapping a newly-stocked bandolier across their chest, they turned their attention to their blasters, making final checks.

“Everybody asks. And, I mean, why wouldn’t they?” Ellis holstered one blaster and picked up another, rubbing out a spot with their thumb. “The two of them are practically attached at the hip. Anybody would get curious.”

Mando turned back to the open air, bristling as the sunlight started to seep into his beskar.

“I don’t.”

A sigh from behind him—one that Mando had no idea how to interpret. Instead of lingering on it, Mando stepped into the evaporating dew of the growing day.

_ Let’s get this done. _

Before them, the city lay like a person trying to wake from a deep, unexpectedly long nap. The stone-paved streets wove around the clay buildings, every so often finding themselves stepped onto by early risers—a woman getting a head start on weeding the flowerbeds before the sun became unbearable, a young man wishing a lover well before sneaking into the morning, ducking to avoid being noticed. When the streets wound their way from the houses into the marketplace, the traffic became more consistent, with shopkeepers opening windows, rolling out awnings, setting out their wares for the day. Humanoid noise was sparse; everything had the sound of objects clinking, thudding, a squeaky gear here and there. And even more obvious in the quiet, Mando’s armor clattered quietly with every step he took.

Mando knew they were exposed. Roving his eyes around the marketplace, he made unintentional eye contact with every suspicious shopkeeper, every early-morning customer. He got the feeling that without the woman he’d left behind, and their children in tow, Ilian would be much less forgiving of his novelty. Word was going to spread like wildfire. He shook his head—his contact had better know something so they could move on.

The flower stall was surprisingly bare when Mando and Ellis approached it. A red flag appeared in Mando’s mind's-eye. Bazz may have seemed a little lax on the day they’d met, but with the sheer amount of flowers he had to sell, it would have made sense that he’d be here at least this early. He stopped before the door.

“This the place?”

Mando hesitated before responding.

“Something’s not right.” 

He reached out with a fist and knocked on the door, but as he did so, it swung open by a crack. Wordlessly, he made eye contact with Ellis and pulled his blaster. Ellis nodded, drawing their own and falling in behind him. Taking a breath, Mando nudged the door open with his boot and aimed his blaster into the room.

No one.

He heard Ellis re-holster their weapon.

“Maybe he just left the door unlocked?”

Mando reluctantly put his blaster back in its holster and cast a skeptical eye around the room. He remembered what Bazz had told him when he’d traded for the Alderaanian flame-lilies:

_ It's a pretty peaceful place, but you can't be too careful. _

“Not likely. He had a slugthrower on his hip.”

“On Ilian?” The surprise in Ellis’s voice was palpable.

“Exactly. Something’s wrong here.”

Taking his meaning, Ellis started searching the room, pulling a drawer out of a desk and rifling through it. Mando joined them, and the more he searched, the more convinced he became that the situation was suspicious. Everything in the office looked like it had been searched through already; stacks of paperwork that might have been organized at some point were sliding off of each other into piles, and several cupboards were slightly ajar. Even after realizing that the contents of those cupboards were just various seeds and floral accoutrement, Mando couldn’t shake the feeling that Bazz had been looking for something—and doing so with some measure of desperation.

After a few moments, Mando turned his attention to a large, slightly ajar cabinet. He opened the double doors and immediately recognized it as a weapons closet, with hooks at even spacing for various rifles, blasters, and slugthrowers. However, those hooks stood empty. Mando tried to check the alarm that crept up his neck, but could no longer ignore it when he noticed a large footlocker in the bottom of the closet. Crouching, he pushed open the haphazardly-placed lid.

He swore.

“What is it?”

But Mando didn’t have to answer. As Ellis looked over his shoulder, they swore, too. Immediately, and in a calm tone that felt slightly forced, Ellis hailed on their comm.

“Neh’naa. Tobalas. You might want to get over here.”

In the foot locker was a full cuirass of Stormtrooper armor.

/////

A few moments, and another round of swears later, Tobalas snapped.

“Gee, Mando. Might have been nice to know you knew our target before we got here.”

Mando whipped around to face him, his temper flaring.

“Do you honestly think I knew?”

Tobalas crossed his arms tightly in front of his chest.

“Given that I’ve only known you for a day and a half, tops, I’m not so sure.”

Mando growled under his breath.

“Okay,” he said. “You think I would have given him my mint-condition Czerka Thunderhead 100 if I knew he was an Imp?”

Any facade of toughness fell away from Tobalas as he started in shock.

“You—wha—ya—you had an _original_ _Thunderhead_?” he spluttered. “And you traded it to a _flower shop guy_?!”

“I think they’re called florists—”

“Not the point, Neh’naa! You gave an _original_ , 100-year-old, rare-as-hell slug thrower to some Stormtrooper covering as a flower salesman?”

Mando sighed.

“Apparently.”

“ _ Why would you do that? _ ”

For a second, Din surfaced with memories of the light in Omera’s eyes as he gave her the flame-lily box. But Mando suppressed it; he didn’t owe this upstart the truth.

“Unimportant.”

“Is it?” Suspicion started growing back into Tobalas’s voice, lacing his words with venom. “See, you don’t just give something like that away. What did you trade with him? Huh? What could a Stormtrooper give you that was worth that much?”

“Tobalas, that’s enough!” Ellis interjected, placing themselves between Tobalas and Mando. “Think about who you’re talking to. You think a Mandalorian is going to voluntarily help a Stormtrooper? A  _ Mandalorian _ ?”

“No.” Tobalas seethed. “But a bounty hunter would, for the right price.” He glared at Mando as if trying to unmask him with just his eyes.

“And which one are you, really?”

An emerald-green hand reached out and gripped Tobalas’s upper arm.

“Tobalas, stop it. Please.”

Though his stare remained trained on Mando, Tobalas’s shoulders came down ever so slightly under Neh’naa’s touch.

“I trust him. You trust me, don’t you?”

For a split second, Tobalas shifted his attention to Neh’naa, the hardness of his expression almost softening with the unexpected seriousness of her voice.

“Of course I do.”

“Okay. Now drop it.”

The silence hung heavy in the air as Tobalas cast one last glare Mando’s way before turning back toward the door with a hissed curse.

“The fact of the matter is,” Ellis said, trying to move the conversation along, “we now know who we’re looking for. We know what he looks like, what he sounds like. It might not be the lead we were expecting to find here, but it’s as good a lead as we’re going to get.”

“You’re forgetting the  _ other _ fact of the matter,” Tobalas tossed over his shoulder, refusing to face the room. “With the state of this place, this guy must have been rushing to leave. He’s probably long gone at this point, especially considering that he left the armor behind.”

“Not necessarily.”

From where she stood by the disheveled desk, Neh’naa held up a hololetter.

“This looks like it was received yesterday,” she said. “It might give us a clue.”

“Go ahead,” Ellis assented.

After turning the hololetter over to find its activation button, Neh’naa held it out so everyone could see and turned it on. Before them, the figure of a Togrutan woman flickered to life, shyly playing with the edge of a long, intricately-patterned silken scarf.

“Hey, Bazz,” she spoke, her voice fuzzy with a light layer of static. “I know I’m going to be seeing you tomorrow, but I just couldn’t wait to say it...happy anniversary.”

Tobalas rolled his eyes.

“Oh, kriff. Turn it off before—”

Neh’naa shushed him as the hololetter continued, the Togrutan tossing the scarf over her shoulder.

“It’s been such a great year, love. And I’m so grateful that you’re in my life. You’re the best man I’ve ever known, and…I just love you!” The Togrutan let out a high, girlish giggle, and Tobalas made a gagging face before quickly being sobered by Neh’naa’s elbow in his ribs. 

“Looking forward to a lot more anniversary celebrations! See you tomorrow for lunch. Our usual spot at Maniik’s. I love you.” And with a blown kiss, the Togrutan disappeared.

“Maniik’s. We just passed that place, didn’t we?”

Tobalas confirmed with a nod. “What time is it?”

“I’d call it late breakfast,” Neh’naa supplied.

“Well then,” Ellis clapped their hands with finality. “Looks like we’ve got a date.”

/////

Mando leaned against a wall in an alleyway near the appointed restaurant, succeeding in his attempt to be invisible. The only thing keeping him from being completely undetectable was his voice responding to every question Neh’naa levelled at him through the comms. And by the  _ ka’ra _ , there were a lot of them.

“So, what kind of vibe does this Bazz guy give off?”

“...What?”

“You know,” Neh’naa asked, “what does he seem like? Sweet? Sincere? Or a little more dirty and flirty?”

Din groaned. It had been bad enough having to describe what Bazz looked like in excruciating and embarrassing detail (“Would you say he’s more ‘cute’ or ‘handsome?’” had been particularly painful to answer without feeling like he was blushing through his helmet), but now she was expecting him to know how he treated a partner? Luckily, Tobalas chimed in from his position inside the restaurant.

“Kriffing hell, Neh’naa! How is that going to be helpful?”

In response, Neh’naa grumbled in frustration before answering.

“Look, if you want whatever intel this girl has, I need to have as much detail as possible about Bazz. So? How do you think he acts with a partner?”

“...Nice. I guess.”

“...Great. Thanks for that, Mando. That really narrows my characterization down.”

“Look alive,” Ellis’s voice cut in from their position further down the street. “Target’s incoming.”

Mando peeked around the corner, and sure enough, the Togrutan woman was floating down the street, the long scarf from the hololetter fluttering around her waist. Almost as if oblivious to everything around her, she turned into the restaurant and disappeared from Mando’s line of sight.

“All right, Neh’naa,” Ellis said. “Give her a minute to get seated, then you’re up.”

“Copy.”

A few minutes passed before Tobalas chimed in, telling Neh’naa to proceed with her plan. Mando watched Neh’naa pass, her head held high, a look of intense concentration on her face morphing into an attitude almost like their target’s—airy, inattentive to the rest of the world, and completely, hopelessly in love.

Out of curiosity, and with nothing else to do but wait, Mando kept his channel with Neh’naa open as she spoke.

“Excuse me,” she said with a slightly formal politeness, “I’m so sorry, but I think you’re at the wrong table.”

“Um...no, this is my table,” the woman’s voice came through, a little muffled, but no less confused. “My boyfriend and I have lunch here every week.”

“Me, too. We always sit at this table.”

Mando heard a shifting noise that he assumed was the woman trying to wave Neh’naa off.

“Well, maybe you’re just here at the wrong time.”

“No, no. Bazz told me to meet him here at noon.”

And with a slanted grin, Mando realized Neh’naa’s plan.

“...Bazz?” 

“Yeah,” Neh’naa said, her voice taking on a dreamy cast. “You know him? Curly, dark hair, a little taller than me, runs a flower shop? It’s our six-month anniversary, you know.”

Mando had to hand it to Neh’naa—she knew exactly how to manipulate the woman. After a few minutes of open sobbing and assurances that both the woman and Neh’naa had been slighted by Bazz, the Togrutan gave them exactly what they needed: a location.

“He lives a few kliks north of here,” the poor Togrutan sniffled. “He’s got all sorts of junk around his house—you can’t miss it. He said he was going to clean it up for me and make us a  _ home _ .”

And with that, the woman dissolved into a wail that pierced Mando’s ears. 

“Don’t worry, honey,” Neh’naa soothed. “I’ll get in a few good kicks for you.”

“ _ Thanks _ .”

A few moments later, the woman’s sobbing faded away as Neh’naa emerged, her demeanor changing once again from a woman wronged to a woman proud.

“Everybody get that?” she asked into the comm as she walked by, not acknowledging the existence of either of her teammates in the alleyways.

“I think that might have been your best act yet,” Tobalas complimented, his voice as genuine as Mando had ever heard it.

“Thanks! So, what are we up to?”

“Meet back at the flower shop,” Ellis instructed. “We’ll go on foot from there. Everybody ready for a fight?”

Mando’s hands curled into fists. How long had it been since he’d thrown them? A thorny heat pricked up his arms, a vine of thorns winding across his shoulders and down his shoulder blades until every inch of his scar-riddled back felt like it would bleed if he didn’t release all that pent-up energy—all that fighting spirit, all that training, all the rage of the shadow warriors of the past, built up over months of domesticity.

_ Ka’ra _ , was he ready to fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, Din Djarin and the Nevarro Three...get ready to roll initiative for next chapter.
> 
> Lots of love to you if you're reading this. Fight the good fight, leave a comment, and I'll see you Wednesday for Mid Week Round-Up over on Tumblr. 😊


	7. Scrap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the team approaches their bounty, and Mando takes back what's his.

The further away from the city the team walked, the more grass sprouted from the cracks in the path like balding patches of hair, until the flagstones fell completely away into the grass, straw-yellow in the scorching heat of the sun, uncared for, unwatered, wild. The horizon spread out flat before them, the wispy breeze rattling through the hollow remnants of drought, carrying the screaming drone of strange insects nestled between the blades. Where the wind could have been soothing, it only served to blow the dry heat under the seal of Mando's helmet, encouraging more sweat as it dripped down his brow. For a moment, Din peered around the firewall.

_Din groaned in relief as his helmet fell into his hands and the aircon in the Razor Crest made contact with his face. He shivered as a drop of sweat, suddenly freezing cold, trickled down his neck._

_“I don't know how you do it.” Omera shook her head and took the helmet from his unresisting hands, setting it on a nearby crate._

_Din peeled off his gloves and tossed them next to the helmet. The rough cotton of his cape scraped against his hands as he dried them off._

_“Sometimes, I don't know, either.”_

_Omera slipped her fingers under the edge of the base plate of one of Din's pauldrons and lifted. The more surface area that emerged from under the armor, the more he realized just how thoroughly he loved the cold as it breathed against his soaked underclothes. In this moment, if he never saw another desert, or even a particularly sunny day on an otherwise temperate planet, he would be perfectly satisfied._

_He reached up to remove his chestplate, but Omera had already unfastened it. In almost an instant, it fell into her hands, and she set it carefully next to the rest of his armor._

_“You're getting good at this,” he quipped as he fought the urge to wink. But from the way Omera's lips tilted, he knew she detected the affection under his tone._

_“Well,” she replied as she pulled Din's cape over his head, “I would prefer if you didn't get heat stroke. And the best way to prevent that is to get all these layers off—as quickly as possible.”_

_The flush that spread across the bridge of Din's nose was no longer just from the heat._

_“Right,” she continued, “to the fresher with you.”_

_“No. Take care of the kids first.”_

_“They'll have their baths later. In case you haven't noticed, they're a bit worn out.”_

_A long day out in the sun had proven to be as effective as a tranquilizer for getting the baby, and even Winta, to go down for a nap without even having to be tucked in. With a chuckle, Din noticed that Winta hadn't even bothered to take off her shoes before crawling into the berth, cuddling the child in next to her._

_“Maybe we should get the baby into his crib.”_

_“Or,” Omera insisted, gently poking a finger into his chest, “_ I'll  _get the baby to his bed while_ you  _get cleaned up.”_

_Din feigned offense._

_“Am I really that bad?”_

_A sly grin tugged at Omera's mouth._

_“Din, my love, I would never lie to you. So believe me when I say...yes. Yes, you are that bad.”_

_The giggle lying beneath her teasing intensified as Din took her hips in his hands, leaned in—_

“There it is.”

With Ellis's voice, Din evaporated again, leaving Mando to blink the sweat out of his eyes.

A blip had appeared on the wavering horizon—from this distance, an uncharacterized black bump about the size of a fingertip. But given that there hadn't been another building for a few clicks at least, Mando quickly assumed that they were looking at their quarry's base.

“Stay low.”

Mando crouched and squinted between the dry leaves of grass, pulling his small telescope from his belt and focusing it on the dot in the distance. In an instant, it became something much more vivid: a giant pile of what looked to be scrap metal, droid parts, and other mechanical castoffs, surrounding a modest-looking white house. The windows were tinted black—clearly meant to obscure the inside.

“I've got visual on the house and the scrap yard.”

“The target?” Ellis asked as they crept toward Mando.

“Probably in the house. We'd have to get closer to scan for a heat signature.”

“Right,” Neh'naa whispered as she and Tobalas slunk closer to the rest of the group. “What's the plan?”

Mando took another look through his telescope.

“Looks like there might be some weak spots around the sides of the house. Two of us could take a direct approach, and the other two could take the sides. Gives him less chance to escape.”

Ellis nodded and tucked the edge of their headscarf back into place.

“Makes sense.”

“So who's going where?” Tobalas rasped.

Neh'naa shrugged amicably. “I'm good anywhere.”

“Maybe you and I should take the sides, Mando,” Ellis suggested. “We'll end up out front that way.”

Rocking back on his heels, Tobalas shook his head and grumbled.

“Why does  _he_ get to go to the front?”

“Because,” Ellis snapped, their tolerance hanging on by a thread, “between the two of us, we have more time and experience in this business than you've ben alive. You and Neh'naa take the front door. Mando and I'll take the sides.”

“Wait. Maybe Mando could go in first and try to talk to Bazz,” Neh'naa suggested.

Tobalas stiffened. “BZ-3484.”

“Yeah, whatever. I mean, he already knows and kinda trusts you. Maybe we won't have to fight.”

Mando hardly considered the proposition before he replied.

“No. He was a security specialist and now he's on the run from the Republic. I can guarantee this place is rigged.”

“Well, let's check and see.”

Gesturing with his macrobinocs in his hand, Tobalas raised them  to his eyes and leaned forward, as if getting even an inch closer to the target would enhance his view. After a moment, he clicked his tongue behind his teeth.

“ Yeah,” he said as he lowered the macrobinocs. “I'm not seeing anything that screams 'trap.' Bunch of useless junk, but nothing that looks defensive.”

Mando shook his head.

“ Still don't trust it.” 

“ Oh,  _ now  _ you don't trust it?”

Mando had the majority of a snarky response up his throat—but before he could voice it, Ellis intervened.

“ Tobalas, I have had it up to here with your attitude,” they glowered, seemingly endless patience finally gone. “Whether you like it or not, Mando is here, and he's signed on to help with this job. Either you can buck up and treat him with civility, or you can go back and sulk on the ship, and we'll split your cut of the bounty. Have I made myself clear?"

Everyone froze. Neh’naa looked as if she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her—evidently, not a fan of conflict. Tobalas, meanwhile, made a moment of defiant eye contact with Ellis before lowering his face in begrudging deference.

“ Whatever.”

“ All right, then.” Ellis drew their blaster and aimed it to the ground, turning toward the right. “Eyes up, ears open. Wait for Mando and I to signal.”

With a final vocal acknowledgement, Mando split off to the left flank, still crouched low to the dry ground. Bazz’s base came into more detail as he approached—jagged silhouettes became an intricate, disorganized droid graveyard, and the white paint on the clay house peeled and cracked. The muscles in his legs gave a muted complaint at squatting for so long, but he quickly put it out of his mind.

At last, he straightened up behind a peak in the junk, resting his back against it. Over his shoulder, he surveyed the open yard and found it empty, save for a spor crawler scuttling across the dust. Across the yard, he caught a glimpse of Ellis, who had found a similar vantage point to his. Turning his eyes back to the house, Mando engaged the thermal scan in his helmet.

“ You seeing anything?” they said across the comms.

“ Yeah. He’s in there, all right. Moving pretty erratically.”

“ Okay, then,” Neh’naa chimed in. Let’s go for it.”

“ Wait.”

Mando couldn’t be sure what, exactly, he was trying to find, but something in his gut was telling him to test the area one more time. Taking a dead gatekeeper droid’s eye in his hand, he gently tossed it into the open dirt.

One hollow ring as it bounced...two…three…

And in the sunlight, he watched as the eye landed on a tripwire, thin as a spider’s thread.

A low hum revved from the pile behind the house, and in an instant, life stirred in the piles of castoffs. Mando watched with intense irritation as mangled patchwork droids stood and cocked their blasters.

A blast whizzed past his ear, and Mando pulled his blaster and fired back—only to have the blast reverberate off of a flickering purple shield. He swore.

“ They’re rigged!” he shouted over the comms. “They’ve all got destroyer shields!”

Blasts echoed through the air—some flying by his head, others towards his fellow hunters--as he fumbled with his belt.

“ How the hell are we supposed to take them out, then?” Tobalas shouted.

“ You can’t! Not with blasters, anyway!” Mando yanked a detonator from his belt and pressed the button. With practiced ease, he gently rolled the detonator off of his hand and watched as it slid under the hybrid-droid’s shield. 

One second. Two. 

Detonation. 

The purple flickering vanished as the droid fell. A shot from Mando’s blaster brought it back down as it tried to stand.

“Well, we don’t all have detonators, Mando!”

“You don’t have to!” Ellis cried. “The shields are faulty! Find a weak spot and blast it!”

As if to prove that point, Ellis took careful aim at a droid coming right for them, waited for what, to an inexperienced eye, might have been far too long, and fired. Just as they predicted, the blast found its way through a vulnerable spot and struck the droid in the core.

Another blast ricocheted off Mando’s armor and he whipped around to face the incoming droid. Unshielded, but too close for a blaster to be of any use. 

_ Good. _

With a grunt, Mando launched a fist at the droid, the armor on his hand sparking off the droid’s exterior. Man and machine grappled, until Mando managed to hook a leg around the droid’s and throw it to the ground. Prone, the droid scrambled to stand, but Mando was on top of it in an instant. A twist, the splitting shriek of wires—another droid down.

“A little help over here, anybody!”

Pulling another detonator, Mando turned back to the others. Tobalas ducked under a droid’s arm as he tried to find a weak spot to plunge his butterfly swords through. 

“Tobalas, get away from it!” For once, Tobalas did what he was told, diving away just as soon as Mando rolled the detonator under the droid’s shield. Another explosion, and the droid toppled. The shield gone, it was all too easy for Tobalas to plunge his swords into the droid’s chassis.

The comms crackled to life again.

“There’s a generator back here somewhere!” Neh’naa exclaimed on the airwaves. “If I can get to it and shut it off, the droids should all go down!”

“Do it!” Ellis barked as their attempted blast failed to reach its target, bouncing back at them with a lightning quickness that barely allowed them to dive out of the way.

Another droid was coming at Ellis. Mando pulled the last detonator from his belt.  _ This had better work. _

He rolled it—too hard—it bounced off the shield—

“Look out!”

The detonator exploded, blast untempered. As the droid’s blast hit him in the shoulder, Tobalas flew through the air, hitting his head on a piece of scrap metal jutting out from the mess. He stirred, then fell still. Mando swore.  _ As if I weren’t on thin ice before— _

“Mando! Cover me! I need to get him out of there!”

Dutifully, Mando trained his blaster in Ellis's vicinity and shot at the droid’s weak spots while he waited for them to move.

But instead of darting between the droid’s fire and muscling Tobalas to safety, Ellis holstered their blaster and raised their hands, face emptying of anything besides concentration.

The barely-conscious Tobalas lifted into the air and drifted toward Ellis as they pulled their arms back. Mando’s eyes widened.

_ Force sensitive. _

Suddenly, the drone of the generator fell dead. So, too, did the hybrid droids, clattering to the arid earth. The day fell once again to stifled silence.

It took a moment for Mando to fully regain his senses.  _ Force sensitive. They’re force sensitive. They can help my boy. They can help— _

The thought was cut short by a metallic ring against his beskar, knocking his shoulder back. He looked in the dirt next to him. With a red, buzzing anger in his chest, he recognized the ammo.

“Cover me,” he growled into the comms.

_ This one’s mine. _

Mando pulled his blaster again and climbed over the junk pile. 

_ Ting.  _ Another slug bounced off his armor. Mando kept walking.

_Ting._ There was a slot in the front door. The slugthrower’s muzzle glinted in the sun. Mando raised his blaster.

 _Ting._ Mando fired.

A cry from behind the door. The muzzle of the slugthrower retreated. Mando reared back and kicked. The door flew open, the wood splintering with the strength of the Mandalorian’s attack. 

Bazz lay curled at his feet, cradling a hand with a blaster hole in it. With a snarl, Mando rolled the target over and placed his knee in his chest. Satisfied with how Bazz wriggled under his weight, Mando cast his eye back over to the discarded slugthrower. 

Just as he’d thought. He picked it up, satisfied with the familiar weight of it.

“I’m taking my gun back.”

“You know what?” Bazz choked. “That’s fair.”

With one hand, Mando caught Bazz’s wrists. After setting the slugthrower back down, he pulled a set of cuffs from his belt and fastened them to Bazz.

“I’d say it’s more than fair,” he remarked, “considering that, if I didn’t have to take you alive, I’d have used it to shoot you in the head.”

If there was one thing Mando couldn’t stand, it was a liar. And watching the color drain from Bazz’s face, replaced by the white chill of fear, gave him a satisfaction he hadn’t felt in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this was late! My life has suddenly gotten much busier, and I'm having to recalibrate my writing schedule. If in the future, a chapter isn't up on Saturday at the usual time, you can check over on my Tumblr (@poetryinmotion-author) for updates.  
> Please don't be shy in the comments! Ask me things! Tell me what you think! Anything at all!!  
> Fight the good fight, and I'll see you--on time--next week. :)


	8. Tricks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which schemes are laid bare, and gray becomes the color of the hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I reduced nikibogwater to assassination attempts with a pillow when I had her proofread this, so...feels ahead, I guess

“You sure you’re okay walking?”

Tobalas sighed—again.

“Yes, Neh’naa. I’m okay. For the fifth time.”

From what Mando could see out of the corner of his eye, he wasn’t so sure. Tobalas’s feet shuffled and stumbled over themselves as they walked back to the Hawk’s Eye, and every few seconds, one of his hands wandered to the spot on the back of his head where he made impact with the junk. When he’d woken up shortly after Mando made the arrest, his face had stayed just as slack and dazed as when he’d been unconscious. And though some of the fog had cleared, Tobalas blinked as if he were still trying to wake up.

Neh’naa, meanwhile, had attached herself to his side.

“At least can you lean on me so I can make sure you don’t pass out again?”

“Fine,” Tobalas groaned, begrudgingly looping his arm through Neh’naa’s. “But I still think you’re overreacting.”

At that, Ellis turned over their shoulder.

“Tobalas, you were unconscious for two minutes from a blow to the head. Forgive us for being a little worried about it.”

“Yeah. I mean, one time, one of my squadmates—"

Mando yanked on Bazz’s restraints.

“Quiet.” 

There were many kinds of bounties—the sullen, sulky ones frustrated that their plans to evade the law had been thwarted, the ones who dissolved into a pile of pleading, pitiful tears, the straight-up violent ones who had to be frozen as soon as they got to the ship—but the worst kind of bounty, at least, in Mando’s estimation, was the friendly bounty—the one who chatted, or attempted to do so, in an effort to wheedle some sympathy from him, or even, delusionally, release from capture. And Bazz, unfortunately, fell into that category.

“So, I’m not allowed to talk?”

“Nope.”

“That doesn’t seem fair, Mando.”

“You’re not the one who decides what’s fair here,” Mando gritted through his teeth. Whether the anger was directed at Bazz for being a Stormtrooper, or at himself for inadvertently putting his family in proximity of a Stormtrooper and doing business with him, Mando couldn’t necessarily tell.

But Neh’naa interrupted behind him.

“I actually kind of agree with him.”

“Thank you,” Bazz threw over his shoulder before being jostled once again.

“Don’t undermine him, Neh’naa.” Ellis turned to face Neh’naa and walked backwards with practiced ease. “If one of us says something, it goes.”

“But he’s clearly not being belligerent. This isn’t how we usually run things.”

“And he’s not our usual bounty, is he?”

Neh’naa opened her mouth as if to protest, but shut it again.

The group fell into silence, the air around them still and quiet in the sleepy late afternoon. Mando felt the humidity seeping under his plates, surrounding him on all sides like a soaked blanket. There was no wind—not even a whisper. Mando’s mind fell into a similar silence. Any thoughts, either from practicality or sentimentality, were smothered by the heat and the exhaustion that often descended on him after a battle.

After a moment, he was jerked back into reality as Bazz tripped on a rock and fell on his face, unable to catch himself. As he brusquely yanked Bazz back to his feet, he hissed in pain.

“Hey,” Bazz huffed, “listen, I know I’m not allowed to talk, but...am I going to get this blaster hole in my hand fixed?”

“I’ll look at it when we get to the ship,” answered Neh’naa, in as neutral a voice as she could manage.

“Great. Thanks.”

Another beat of quiet.

“You know,” Bazz said, as if testing the limits of Mando’s strict rule of silence, “if I’d known you were coming, I would’ve maybe armored up. Then you wouldn’t have to waste your bacta on me.”

Mando started as Tobalas barked out a laugh.

“If you’d known we were coming! What the hell were you expecting, a greeting card? ‘Hey! BZ-3484! We’re coming for ya! Suit up or run!’’

“Wait, wait. You didn’t know we were coming?” Neh’naa asked.

“No.”

And it didn’t seem that Ellis could resist discussion, either. In his curiosity, Mando allowed it to ensue.

“So,” Ellis asked, “if you didn’t know, why was your shop torn up like that?”

Bazz sighed, watching his feet as they moved forward.

“It’s, ah...it’s kind of embarrassing.”

Tobalas’s eye roll was practically audible.

“But,” Bazz continued, “...I bought an engagement ring a few days ago. And, ah...I lost it. Was going to propose today, until, well…”

A high-pitched gasp from behind brought the whole group to a halt. Neh’naa had frozen where she stood, gripping Tobalas’s arm.

“What? What happened?” Bazz asked over his shoulder. But on seeing Neh’naa’s expression—a look of guilty horror—gave him some spark of resistance. He pulled against Mando’s restraints, wheeling around to face Neh’naa fully. 

“Pela...what did you do to Pela?” he demanded as Mando dragged him back.

“Relax,” he ordered. “We didn’t hurt her.”

Tobalas smirked.

“Not physically, anyway.”

“Shut up!” Mando barked. But the damage was already done—Bazz strained against Mando even more fiercely.

“What the  _ hell  _ is that supposed to mean?” he bellowed. “ _ What did you do? _ ”

And in one breath, Neh’naa confessed, her shoulders rising as if guarding against a blow.

“She-may-or-may-not-now-believe-you’ve-been-cheating-on-her-with-me-for-six-months.”

The anger in Bazz’s expression trickled away, grain by grain, like sand, replaced by an expression that Mando could only describe as desolated.

“...Oh.”

Neh’naa’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again as she put her hand over her chest.

“I...I’m…” But she couldn’t seem to finish whatever she wanted to say as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and averted her eyes.

Every atom of the atmosphere hummed with all the tensions of heartbreak. Then, Bazz straightened up, turned, and started walking toward the ship in Mando’s stead—unresisting.

Silence covered them all until the Hawk’s Eye surfaced from the plains.

/////

“All right,” Ellis said as they stood by the open hatch. “Running back to town real quick for some supplies. Any requests?”

Tobalas readily piped up from where he reclined on the couch, resting his head on a pillow.

“I’ll take some ahrisa if you can find them.”

“Got it. Neh’naa?”

But Neh’naa seemed to be in another world. Her expression hadn’t changed much in the hour or so since the confrontation in the plains; she curled into herself and shook her head, worrying a space on her wrist with her thumb.

“You sure?” Ellis asked, their tone as gentle as Mando had ever heard it. “Not even some shaal? I saw somebody selling it earlier.”

“No, thank you.”

Though clearly not satisfied with that reply, Ellis turned their attention to Mando.

“What about you, Mando? Want anything?”

To be fair, Mando wanted several things simultaneously. He wanted to ask Ellis about the Force—how they were able to use it, how they were taught, if they had trained with some master, or if they’d taught themselves. He wanted to ask them how—or if—they could help his son with his own burgeoning powers. Mostly, he just wanted to go home. He wanted to get this bounty squared away. He wanted his cut of the credits. He wanted to take off the helmet and greet his beloved, hold his children. He’d only been gone for a day, and it felt like he’d been gone for weeks.

“Nothing for me, thank you.”

Ellis acknowledged his response with a nod in his direction.

“All right. I shouldn’t be long. When I get back, we’re taking off.”

And with that, Ellis turned and walked back into the slowly-gathering dusk.

They hadn’t asked Bazz what he wanted, but Mando was certain that even if they had, he wouldn’t have responded. Behind the plasma bars of the cage in the far corner of the hull, Bazz sat with his head hung low, his elbows resting heavily on his thighs. The only sign that he was still alive was the fidgeting of his fingers under the glow of the handcuffs. If he leaned forward any further, his hair would get fried off on the plasma bars. The smell would be horrific, but Mando wasn’t sure he would notice. Like Neh’naa, he didn’t seem cognizant of anything outside of his cell.

“Hey.” Tobalas interrupted the quiet and sat up with a low grumble of pain. “You okay, Tails?”

Neh’naa’s eyes darted from where they were fixed in a thousand-mile stare to Bazz, then back again.

“...I’m fine.”

Tobalas rolled his eyes.

“I’m concussed, not stupid. You never,  _ ever  _ turn down shaal. Look, if this is about him, then—”

“Of course it’s about him!” The paper-thin dam holding back Neh’naa’s emotions exploded. “I mean, he was gonna propose to that really nice girl, and she seemed so in love with him, and I—and I—oh, stars, I’m a  _ homewrecker _ !”

Tobalas flopped back down on the pillow and cringed a little at the impact.

“Neh’naa, how many times have you pulled that trick—and worse?”

“A lot, but—”

“So what’s the issue? You  _ love  _ pulling cons.”

“Yeah,” Neh’naa whimpered, “when the people I’m conning are  _ assholes. _ But...he seems nice, Toby. Really nice.”

Tobalas huffed.

“‘Seems’ being the operative word there. You seem to be forgetting that he’s an enemy. Not just a bail-jumper or rent-dodger—a  _ real  _ enemy.”

Tobalas’s expression darkened into glowering as he stared at the man in the cage.

“That’s the thing with Imperials,” he continued. “They’re good at pretending. They can get under your skin, weasel into your home, into your life. And then, bam. They kill everything you love.”

Finally, a sign of life from their quarry as he scoffed.

“You think that’s what we are?”

Tobalas’s glare didn’t waver.

“Yeah. That’s how the Empire started—one man pretended to have the best interests of the Republic at heart, while lying through his teeth and orchestrating its destruction on the side. Why wouldn’t he train all his goons to do the same? Mando, you gotta back me up here.”

And he did. At least, partially—most of the Stormtroopers he’d encountered had been footsoldiers, grunt workers who carried out orders with few original ideas to call their own. But, in respect of his earlier desire to not engage with his quarry any further than what was necessary, he stayed silent.

“You want to know what I was trained to do?”

“No.” Tobalas snarked.

“I was trained,” Bazz continued, regardless of anyone’s disinterest, “to repair protocol droids. To know a data chip compatible with a C-3P0 model from one for an RA-7. To know what kind of wiring it takes to make a droid capable of serving drinks, delivering messages, and, yeah, capable of killing, if captured. But you know what I did when I realized I was converting more and more 3P0s into battle-ready droids—when I was commissioned to design a security system that would torture intruders instead of killing them right away?” 

He leaned forward even further—so far that the sparks coming off the plasma bars flew forward with his breath.

“I ran. I got out. I took off the armor and put on a name, a persona that no one would suspect. I tried to leave it behind, tried not to think about the blood that had been spilled because of the things  _ I  _ did. And it worked. I learned to like selling flowers, to like going home and sleeping in an actual bed, not a barracks. I found someone who didn’t ask me where I came from—just where I was going, and if she could go with me. And now…”

Every muscle in Mando’s chest clenched. His breath caught just under his diaphragm as he held it there, resorting to physical effort to hold back the memories of Omera, of her eyes, of her smile, of the sound her skin made as she tenderly brushed her hands against his beskar, of sweet, snatched moments with her just before their children woke up, sweet moments of looking back on a trail of blood for half a second before gazing at the future that lay before him—all the clasped hands, all the embraces, all the loving he could be capable of...

“Now it’s gone.”

“You…” Mando rasped, “you weren’t a security expert?”

Bazz’s brow furrowed.

“No. Is that what the bounty said?”

A small coil of frozen steel tightened in Mando’s stomach. 

“Liar!” 

Tobalas launched himself straight from lying down to standing, and immediately fell back down. Neh’naa shot over to him and pressed him back down when he tried to sit back up.

“He’s…” Tobalas slurred, “He’s lyin’...try’na trick us…”

“Toby, you need to rest,” Neh’naa soothed, brushing his untidy hair from his eyes. “Unless you want this concussion to last for the next several months, instead of a few days.”

“Don’ trust ‘im, Tails…”

With a mumbled curse, Tobalas fell to unconsciousness.

“Is he okay?”

“You shut up!” Neh’naa shrieked at Bazz, who sat back as if struck. “You...you…” 

With a high growl of frustration, she launched herself from Tobalas’s side and stomped into the open air.

Mando watched Bazz’s face for a moment. Something was brewing underneath that vacant expression; while his face was generally placid, Bazz’s eyes were aflame with something that Mando couldn’t find any positive words for.

“I’m sorry, Mando.” Bazz met his eyes with no hesitation. “About everything with your people.”

Mando couldn’t tell if he was being genuine, or simply clever, but he wasn’t about to sit and listen to an Imperial try to apologize for the scar tissue on his soul that had just opened a crack. Mando whipped around and exited into the growing night.

Neh’naa sat crouched on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. As soon as she heard Mando’s approaching footsteps, she sniffled and scrubbed at her face to try and dry hot, angry tears.

“Sorry.”

“No,” Neh’naa mumbled, “ _ I’m _ sorry. You were right—I shouldn’t have talked to him.”

Mando shrugged and fixed his eyes on the town in the distance, watching as the lights started flickering on in the windows. In the coolness of the evening, crickets woke and started singing to each other. 

“You’re still a rookie. You’ll get used to it.”

He felt Neh’naa’s gaze turn to him.

“Used to what?”

“Wrecking homes.”

The hum of the electronics from the Hawk’s Eye abruptly fell silent. Both hunters turned back to the ship they’d left and ran back inside. Mando ran a list of all the things it could be: generator failure, shorted circuit, dead engine—

Bazz held out his hands from where he still sat, reaching beyond where the plasma bars normally would have been. In one of his hands sat an electromagnetic pulsar.

“I don’t trust your client. And we’re not leaving until I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you just love a cliffhanger? 😉
> 
> In other news, if you haven't seen it yet, I published a Beach Day One-Shot for Clan Djarin called "Refresh!" It was super fun to write, and definitely something to read if you need to come back down from the cliff I just dangled you off of. 😊
> 
> Leave your comments and questions for me in that ol' comment box, or over on Tumblr (@poetryinmotion-author), and I'll see you next week!


	9. Stall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which vulnerabilities are laid bare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real quick: thank nikibogwater for bringing this chapter out of me. The writer's block was strong this week, and without her help, this wouldn't be here.

From where he stood leaning stiffly against the doorframe of the Hawk’s Eye, Mando could hear frantic shuffling in the cockpit. Ellis had disappeared into it several minutes ago, and judging from the low curses and slamming, they weren’t pleased with what they’d returned to. With each impact, Neh’naa flinched as she paced the opposite side of the hull from where their prisoner sat, jaw clenched, struggling every so often against the restraints that now attached him to his chair. Casting his gaze to the couch on his left, Mando almost envied Tobalas’s concussion-induced sleep--it would be much better than this tension.

Without warning, the cockpit door slammed open and Ellis stomped out, almost too distracted to speak. Neh’naa froze. All eyes turned to Ellis as they gave the verdict:

“Gone. It’s all shot.”

Mando swore. And Ellis contained themselves for another moment before they erupted.

“ _ You didn’t pat him down?” _

“Of course I patted him down!” Din spat. “I have no idea where he pulled that thing from.”

“Honestly, you don’t want to know--”

“Shut up!” Ellis hissed an interruption. “You know how long this is going to take for me to fix? Days! Literal days! And that’s not even mentioning the money! You think we’ve just got this kind of money laying around?”

“Look,” Bazz said earnestly, “I’m sorry about that--”

“Oh, I’m  _ sure _ you are,” Ellis sneered before finally rounding on Neh’naa, who hugged herself so tightly that Mando was sure her bones would break. “What happened to not talking to him? Huh? What did we specifically tell you  _ not  _ to do?”

“Hey! Maybe if we hadn’t talked to him, he might have done this at lightspeed!” Neh’naa defended herself.

“I’m not suicidal--”

“You sure?” Ellis gritted through their teeth. “Because you certainly seem to have a death wish keeping that traitor mouth of yours going!”

Bazz blinked and sat back, his arms falling limp in their restraints. Something behind his expression started to concentrate, dark in color and intention.

“Traitor,” he echoed.

“Yes! Traitor.”

After a moment, Bazz leaned toward Mando and focused the intensity on him.

“But who did I betray?”

_ The screaming was almost too much to bear. And he was helpless. Din was helpless. The building stood on its last legs as he fled. The force of the collapse ground him into the dirt. As he spit dust from his mouth, the screaming transfigured, for a moment, into his name, then died with a gasp. _

_ They were dead. Din Djarin was a traitor. He should have stayed. He should have pulled them out or died with them. He wished he had died with them. _

_ Din pulled his blaster with a roar ripped from his innards and fired on every white helmet he could see. _

“Whoa, whoa, Mando! Take it easy!”

Ellis’s hand wrapped around his wrist before he could land a blow. He blinked. How had he gotten over here?

“We’re pushing our luck as it is handing him over with a blaster wound,” Ellis continued, tone a forced calm. “We can’t hand him in with a busted face. Stand down.”

Though the child of war, the orphan several times over, wanted nothing more than to disobey, the soldier won out. Mando slowly lowered his arm and backed away, bracing against the wall. 

Ellis ran a hand down their face, the frustration suddenly seeping into exhaustion.

“Neh’naa, put him to bed for a day or two.”

“You can shut me up however you want,” Bazz said as Neh’naa rifled through her knapsack, bottles clinking together as she searched, “but the fact still remains that there is something not right here. Do you even have a name for your client? Or is it just ‘the Republic?’”

“We have a location.” Mando’s voice rumbled as he tried to re-engage with the world around him.

“But who are you meeting at that location?”

“That doesn’t matter to you.”

“I think it does.” The chair screeched quietly against the floor as Bazz scraped it closer to Mando. “If you give me to the wrong person, I might get hurt or worse for no good reason, and that blood will be on your hands.”

“I already have plenty of that.” Mando’s voice in the present echoed against screams, pleas, dying gasps that replayed in his memory. “Your blood is a drop in the bucket--and one that I will not regret for a second if you give me cause.”

“Isn’t that exhausting?”

“...What?”

“Carrying all those lives around with you. How many people have you killed? How many lives have been destroyed in collateral damage?”

Unbidden, the mounds of dirt surrounding the village on Sorgan came rushing back into Mando’s mind. There hadn’t been that many when he’d arrived, or even when he’d left. So many fresh graves left in his wake…and so much pain--Winta’s face, screwed up in an agonized cry as he worked at the wound that wouldn’t be there if he’d never met her...the tears Omera had shed at the thought of losing her little girl...the nightmares of an innocent child, the mental scars that would never fully heal...had he told either his daughter or his beloved that he was sorry for intruding on their lives? Would it ever be enough?

“Wouldn’t you prefer not to add another pound to all the weight you’re carrying around inside you?”

The silence hung heavy and low in the air. If Mando had had the presence of mind to look up from where he’d hung his head, he might have imagined seeing it--a yellowish haze lying over their heads, the thinnest barrier the only thing keeping it from crushing them all.

Ellis’s voice broke that barrier.

“That’s enough. Neh’naa, take care of him.”

Neh’naa hesitated, the thick canvas sachet in her hand dangling by a string.

“Now.”

At Ellis’s urging, Neh’naa obeyed, stepping forward to release Bazz.

“Please don’t try anything,” Neh’naa implored their prisoner, voice strained. Obediently, Bazz stood and awaited instruction.

“On your back.”

Slowly, with his hands where everyone could see them, Bazz laid flat on the floor of the ship. Neh’naa knelt beside him and fiddled with the strings keeping the sachet closed.

“Okay. Breathe deep. It’ll only take a second, and you’ll sleep for about two days.”

The bag came untied, and Neh’naa held her breath as she held the open bag firmly to Bazz’s nose. Mando caught a glimpse of crushed blue flowers inside. Bazz’s eyes rolled back into his head as he fell into sleep.

“Millaflower?”

“Yup.” Neh’naa re-tied the bag and took a deep breath of the waking air. “Not concentrated enough to be poison--just potent enough to keep him out of our hair while we fix things.” Neh’naa turned and fixed Mando with a look. “How did you know?”

“No reason,” Mando lied as he heard Omera’s voice in his ear, telling him all about its properties, its habitat, its beauty. How he missed beauty.

A stirring from the couch caught the attention of everyone in the room as Tobalas slowly sat up, cringing and holding his head. He squeezed his eyes closed, then opened them again on Ellis.

“Hey, Ellis,” he mumbled. “Did you find ahrisa for me?”

Ellis snatched a small pouch from their bag on the floor, tossed it at Tobalas, and stode back into the cockpit, slamming the door behind them.

Blinking bemusedly, Tobalas turned his attention to Neh’naa.

“What happened?”

“Ship’s grounded. Bazz had an EMP on him. All our electrical stuff’s dead.”

Tobalas’s face scrunched for a second as he tried to understand Neh’naa’s words. Then, with a huff, he looked over the back of the couch at Mando.

“You didn’t pat him down?”

Without a word, Mando launched himself off the wall and out into the open air. 

A sliver of one of Ilian’s moons peeked from behind a strand of gauzy stardust on the horizon. The three moons took their vigil in turns at night; one would appear, then the second, then the third, until, at about midnight, they arched across the sky, connected by a chain of yet-to-be-made stars. The moons had all been full when he’d been here last. As they lay beneath the open sky, Omera had commented that it looked like a necklace she had worn for her wedding. Din hadn’t known how to feel about that. He knew that she’d loved Silan--theirs was not an arranged marriage, but a decision made by both of them. 

But suddenly, in the waning moonlight, Din was crushed by the guilt he had tried so hard to banish. Had Silan lived, Omera wouldn’t be hiding underground with two children, waiting for his return, or notification of his death. Had Silan lived, maybe Winta would have more siblings, more children that had been born of her mother. Maybe, if Silan had lived, the woman he loved, and the daughter he loved, would have had an easier--happier--life.

And in the stillness of the night, longing to hold his son in his arms, Din ducked into the grass and took off his helmet. He lay on his back and gave in to wishing.

Din wished he could provide them with that easier, happier life. He wished, with all his might, that he could make them safe. He wished he weren’t what he was, and instead that he’d been born a farmer, or a merchant, or even an academic at some school somewhere. Then he’d be able to  _ really _ provide: friends for his children to invite to dinner...a stable home with bedrooms, a real floor, a kitchen fit for a palace...a garden with anything and everything Omera could dream of...clothes that didn’t have to be patched all the time…time with his family, so much more  _ time _ .

He could practically see it all. And, by the  _ ka’ra _ , it hurt.

Din bit his lip and resisted the urge to call her on the comms. He couldn’t risk it. Instead, he closed his eyes, and repeated something that Omera had told him so many times before, one that he clung to as if it were the only line keeping him from flying into the cold abyss above.

_ I don’t care about the past. I care about you now. I love you now. I love you. I love you. I love you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and sorry (not sorry) for the feels. Let me know your thoughts down below or on Tumblr (@poetryinmotion-author)! I may or may not write a fluffy one-shot this week...See you then :)


	10. Resolve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, you’re a Mandalorian. I’m force-sensitive. What are you going to do about it?”

Around the second hour of tossing and turning in bed, Omera abandoned her futile attempts to sleep. And they  _ had  _ been futile; she'd known from the minute she'd turned out the lantern and collapsed into bed. It wasn't for a lack of tiredness. All day, she'd felt the weight of exhaustion on her shoulders and fought it tooth and nail—the children needed someone to rely on, and she didn't have anyone there to help with the load.

But even now, in the dead of night, with no one immediately dependent on her, the exhaustion refused to drop, refused to land the final blow.

He wasn't there.

Omera sat up in the half-empty bed, inwardly reprimanded herself. Ten years she'd slept alone, with perfect regularity, until...well, until that first night Din took off armor for her, the first night he called her his beloved. It had taken only a few months to undo her learned capability of sleeping in a bed by herself.

It had been this way when Silan died, too.

Omera shook her head and swung her legs over so her feet hit the warm permacrete below. No. She'd made her peace with that long ago. She snatched her shawl from the foot of the bed and wound it around her body—not necessarily to stave off the cold (living underground on a volcanic planet had its advantages), but more in an attempt to mimic Din's arms around her.

And as she stood and began to pace, she was suddenly struck by the irony of it all. This shawl had been a courting gift from Silan, and now she was using it to make the memory of another man's embrace more real.

Stars, Silan had been a good man.

Silan, in all his confidence and boldness, surfaced in her memory, with his twinkling eyes, his almost too curly hair clouding around his head, his smile that would have been perfect, had it not always been crooked. He was deaf in one ear, and you always knew when he was really listening to you—he would lean toward you, leading with his good ear, keeping his eyes constantly on you.

He was bright, so  _ bright _ . His words always carried an undercurrent of humor, as if his voice had eyes and was winking at you with every syllable. His speech had been simple, homey. Even in their most amorous moments, Silan spoke with nothing more than sincerity. The day he'd left for Alderaan, after kissing her nearly senseless, he'd crouched and pressed equally fervent kisses to her rounded belly.

"You stay in there until I get back, little miss," he'd murmured to their unborn child. He'd always been so certain it was a girl, from the moment she'd told him she was pregnant.

He was right.

Several months ago, Omera had thought she'd grown past missing him. For ten years, she'd acknowledged his loss, and thought she had moved on. And she felt as though Silan had, too.

Then Din Djarin walked into her barn.

Omera spun on her heel.  _ No,  _ she reminded herself again.  _ He gave me a sign. We let each other go. _

The moment she'd felt those emotions coming back, those preludes to a romantic inclination, Omera had panicked. She'd dealt with missing Silan, of course— _ that  _ wound had healed. But until that moment, she hadn't considered the possibility of being attracted to someone again. She found herself occupied, heart and soul, with this new conflict inside of her. Long into the nights, she'd debated fiercely with herself. Would pursuing this new man make the love she'd felt for Silan null and void—a cheap castoff toy that she'd grown bored with? That she would soon forget?

It came to a head the night of the battle. Once the adrenaline had worn off a bit, Din had sought her out. Their interaction was only momentary, with Din silently clasping her hand in a warrior's greeting before going to check on his son. But Omera's hand burned with fate. In desperation for an answer, after tucking Winta into bed, Omera had crept into a quiet thicket and spoken to her husband—unsure if he could hear her, unsure if he was even there, if this was even how the afterlife worked.

"Silan," she'd choked, "I love him. I can't help it. It doesn't change the fact that I loved you, but there's something about him...I can't deny it or ignore it anymore. Please. Give me a sign—something to let me know that this is all right. Please."

The very next day, Omera had woken up to find Winta missing from her bed. Not necessarily worried, she hurriedly left her hut, about to call Winta's name when she spotted her. She stood next to the Mandalorian, speaking with great enthusiasm about something or other. And the Mandalorian knelt, with his own child on his knee, and listened, silent and patient.

"Thank you," she'd whispered. "Thank you."

She didn't miss Silan anymore—he'd given her his blessing to move on. Now, she had her sweet, stoic, soft-spoken Din.

Well, not  _ right  _ now. The bed growing cold across the room she paced was still empty, and would be for days, maybe weeks.

_ Is this who I am?  _ Omera wondered as she worried one of the shawl's tassels between her fingers.  _ Am I always going to be the woman who misses someone? _

What she wouldn't give to hear Din's voice.

Omera bit her lip and resisted the urge to call him on the comms. She couldn't risk distracting him from—stars only knew what dangerous tasks he was undertaking. 

She slid back under the covers and pulled Din's pillow close, burying her face in it and taking deep breaths. It still smelled like his soap. In her mind, she replayed all the beautiful words he called her, all of his unexpected poetry.

_ Ner tracinya. Ner runi. Ner yaim. Kandosii'la dala. Sarad be ner kar'ta. Cya're. Cya're. Beloved. Omera. My Omera. Cyar'ika. Omera. _

/////

Aside from the occasional question, the day passed in silence as the crew worked to repair the Hawk’s Eye. Ellis had stubbornly insisted on taking on most of the work themself and holed up in the cockpit, obsessing over every switch. Mando had offered to take on repairing the exterior circuitry—he’d had enough shoot-outs in his life to know how to fix flight systems in the wings. Ellis had let him go, and for hours, he’d laid on his stomach, rewiring every mechanism in the left wing. His eyes had dried up about an hour ago, but he was  _ this close _ to finishing, and he didn’t see the point in taking a break at this point...now was it the green wire or the blue connecting to the secondary circuit board? He tried to blink but it stung so badly that he could only squint and hope for some moisture to miraculously appear.

“Hey.”

Mando leaned over the edge of the wing. Ellis stood beneath him with a mess kit laden with prepared ration.

“I know you can’t eat in front of people,” they continued, “but I figured you could use a break.”

Mando was about to politely decline, but his stomach, as if on cue, practically vibrated as the smell of the ration filtered through his helmet. He sighed, connected the green wire, and slid off the wing, landing on his feet. He reached out and took the offered food.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

As Ellis turned to reenter the Hawk’s Eye, Mando called them back. As they turned, Mando weighed his two options. He could ask what he really wanted to know—how Ellis was force-sensitive—or he could find something else—something much less invasive and sudden.

“I’m sorry about...all this,” he decided, gesturing to the ship.

Ellis shrugged and leaned against the hull.

“It’s not your fault,” they replied. “I have ideas about where he hid that EMP, and I would absolutely not expect you to search there.”

After a moment, they continued.

“I’m sorry I blew up like that yesterday. It’s just…” Ellis pushed off the hull and looked up at the ship itself, as if exchanging a fond glance with a friend. “This is my home. Since I got kicked out of mine a long time ago, this old boat’s been taking care of me.”

“Kicked out?”

Ellis’s shoulders tightened, and their gaze fell.

“Yeah.”

Before he could stop himself, Mando blurted:

“Was it because you’re force sensitive?”

But to his relief, Ellis chuckled.

“You kidding? I’m Mirialan. If you don’t have at least three force-sensitives in your family, there’s something wrong with you.” 

They paused, as if considering their next words with great care. 

“No,” they continued. “I was kicked out for other reasons.”

The statement itself felt like it had crowds of shadow surrounding it—shapes looming over Ellis, suddenly looking much more vulnerable, less self-possessed, bowed by some invisible weight. Then, they shook their head, and the shadows faded.

“So,” they said, switching gears, “you’re a Mandalorian. I’m force-sensitive. What are you going to do about it?”

For a moment, Mando was taken back to his days training in the fighting corps. They’d had whole sessions on how to defend oneself against force-sensitives, Jedi and Sith alike—use a slugthrower when possible, try to get the lightsaber away from them, shoot for the legs, then the head. What would his instructors think, now that he was considering an alliance?

“I’m going to ask for your help.”

Ellis’s face fell into a vague surprise.

“With what?”

“My son. He’s force-sensitive, too.”

Ellis’s eyebrows shot past their headscarf.

“You have a kid?”

“Two.”

For a moment, Ellis blinked, as if unsure how to proceed. Then, they crossed their arms and leaned back onto the ship.

“So, let me guess,” they asked. “You want me to train your son?”

Mando set down the plate he was holding and leaned against the ship, making eye contact.

“No, just...he needs to learn how to control it.”

Ellis scoffed and shook their head.

“That’s not how it works.”

“Then how  _ does  _ it work?”

Letting out a long sigh, Ellis’s eyes grew distant as they watched the horizon, as if the response was out there, coming towards them.

“Mando, the Force isn’t something you control,” they began. “Nor is it something that controls you. At the risk of sounding like a Jedi, it...transcends everything around us, every concept we have made for ourselves—concepts of control, of power, species, race...gender…”

Ellis’s gaze dropped to the grass, and their expression fell, as if listening to some interior voice and trying to stop it from speaking. After a moment, they straightened back up again.

“It’s way more than control,” they continued. “It’s more like...a coworker. A teammate. Something that works with you as long as you work with it.”

Mando stilled down to his soul, as if he, too, were trying to listen for that voice, that Force he’d never even considered reaching out to. 

“How old is your kid?”

Mando sighed as the homesickness swept in with the memory of his son’s little face.

“Well, his species ages slower than ours. He’s fifty, but by our reckoning, I’d put him at maybe two years old.”

“How long has he been displaying his sensitivity?”

Mando shrugged.

“Since I’ve met him. I don’t know about anything before.”

“Adopted, huh?”

The memories of the past year flooded in, and Mando could only chuckle at the understatement of Ellis’s words.

“You could say that, yeah.”

Ellis nodded next to him, and fell into silence. Mando couldn’t tell if they were thinking over his proposition, or thinking about how to reject it.

“I’ll pay you,” he offered. “Whatever I can. Money’s kind of tight, but...I’ll make it work. Whatever it takes. As long as my son gets what he needs.”

“And you think I can provide that?”

Mando could sense the rejection coming..

“It’s okay if you don’t want to do it.”

Ellis took a deep breath, then straightened up.

“Well, let’s meet the little guy first, huh?” Ellis patted Mando on the shoulder and turned back to the ship’s entrance. “Then we’ll talk about if payment is necessary.”

Mando couldn’t help but feel relieved, even with this open-ended answer. They were going to consider it—and that was enough. 

He scooped the plate of now-lukewarm ration off of the ground and trekked a few minutes away from the ship. When he was satisfied with the distance, Mando took off the helmet and sat in the long grass, wishing he had his son there to eat with him, wishing he could tell him the good news—that he might have a teacher to help him with his special powers. But for now, as he shovelled the food into his mouth, Mando stored that news in his mind for when he returned to his family. At least he would be able to bring  _ something _ good out of this mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a Translations:  
> Ner tracinya: my fire  
> Ner runi: my soul  
> Ner yaim: my home  
> Kandosii'la dala: stunning woman  
> Sarad be ner kar'ta: flower of my heart  
> Cya’re: beloved  
> Cyar'ika: sweetheart
> 
> ....yeah. Our Tin Can Man's a poet under that beskar. ❤
> 
> Leave your comments and questions in the comments section, and feel free to inbox me on Tumblr (@poetryinmotion—author) and Twitter (@EAReames)!


	11. Matriarch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The armory was filled only with the breath of creation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK!   
> Thanks so much for your patience! That week off really helped me mentally. I was really struggling through the sludge (aka depression), and being able to step back for a little while was really important to climbing out of it.  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter! (I don't know about you all, but I missed our girls on Nevarro. :) )

Of all the jobs that the Armorer had given Winta in the past few days, cleaning the metal was the worst. For one thing, the thick leather gloves the Armorer had given her flapped around her elbows with every movement, making the cleaning process slower than if she had just been using her bare hands. For another, the acrid smell of the paint-stripping solution burned her nose and eyes. And Winta could only guess what kinds of paints had been used on the Armorer’s store of steel; they clung to the metal with such force that stripping one small piece took ages.

But Winta didn’t mind that part. Sitting still meant that the Armorer could talk—and she had grown to love listening.

“So, what kind of metal is this, anyway?” asked Winta, vehemently rubbing at a stubborn spot of red.

“That is durasteel.” The Armorer turned back to Winta as she finished heating the crucible across the armory. “A far lesser metal than beskar, but still—better than nothing.”

“What makes beskar so special?”

The Armorer tread back over to Winta and knelt beside her.

“It is an alloy whose production and forging is the sacred tradition of the Mandalorians,” the Armorer instructed. “It is able to be transformed into nearly anything—armor, weapons, shields. It can only be shaped using our ancient methods, and it is virtually indestructible. That versatility led the Empire to plunder our foundries when they overtook Mandalore, making beskar rare beyond measure. The only beskar I have seen since that day,” the Armorer finished with a sigh, “is the beskar your father earned, and which he now bears as his  _ beskar’gam. _ ”

The Armorer’s voice resonated with the weight of her heritage, and as she spoke, Winta’s mind reeled with images of the past—of hundreds of armorers, warriors all clad in Dad’s shiny silver armor, sparring with each other using flashing, powerful-looking swords.

“In fact,” the Armorer added, gesturing to Winta’s chest plate where it sat on the workbench next to a small flak vest, “your chest plate is forged from your father’s donation to the Tribe’s foundlings.”

Winta’s heart lifted, sending warmth radiating into all her body. Even before he knew she existed, Dad had looked out for her.

“So,” Winta asked, “the Empire took your homeworld?”

“...Yes.”

“Just for beskar? Couldn’t they have just traded with you?”

“One does not trade their heritage away, Winta.” An edge had started to come into the Armorer’s voice—and with it, distance. “Besides, the Empire was not just interested in beskar...they took far more with them. But,” the Armorer continued, coming back to the present, “we will discuss our history later—when you know what being a Mandalorian means. Have you memorized the Resol’nare, as I have told you?”

Winta squinted at the metal in her hands as the paint faded under her rag. She wracked her brain. She’d been repeating the Resol’nare to herself since yesterday—under her breath as she played, in her head as she tried and failed to fall asleep—but the new language had been difficult to get a handle on.

“ _ Ba’jur, beskar’gam, ara’nov, aliit… _ ” Winta froze, the flush in her face no longer solely from the heat of the armory.

“You’re speaking it now.”

“ _ Mando’a _ !” Winta exclaimed with no small amount of frustration—she knew it had been in her memory somewhere. “ _ Mando’a _ , right.  _ Ba’jur, beskar’gam, ara’nov, aliit, Mando’a, Manda’lor—an...an… _ ” She sighed. “I can’t remember the last part. But I can remember the whole thing in Basic.”

“Go on, then.” Was that disappointment in the Armorer’s voice? Winta certainly hoped not. Her voice fell into the cadence of the Basic rhyme easily.

“Education, armor, self-defense, our tribe, our language, our leader—these things keep us alive.”

“Good,” said the Armorer. “Do you know the importance of these things?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Full words in this armory, Winta.”

_ Right.  _ How could she have forgotten that rule?

“Yes.”

“‘Yes,’ what?” the Armorer pressed. “Yes, you understand me, or yes, you understand the Resol’nare?”

Winta checked a growl of annoyance—after all, what seemed pedantic to her was important to an authority figure.

“Yes to both.”

“Then explain the Resol’nare to me. In your own words. Education first.”

“Well…” Winta searched for a moment for words that would both be her own and impress the Armorer. “Education means that a Mandalorian has to go to school and listen to the people who teach them. Right?”

The Armorer’s helmet bobbed from one side to the other.

“In part. Tell me, Winta. Do you learn from your mother?”

Winta thought back to Sorgan, where she learned how to weave baskets, grow and preserve food, how to use every part of the resources the world gave her. And her mother was at the forefront of all those memories.

“Yes, I do.”

“And your father?”

Without Dad, Winta wouldn’t know an exhaust release from a gear shift, or how to track prey through the underbrush, or how to survive in the wilderness, far away from any village.

“Yes.”

“And I am no school-teacher. Yet do you learn from me?”

“I am right now.”

“Exactly. Education comes not only from structure, but from life itself. As a Mandalorian,” the Armorer emphasized with a gesture to Winta, “your mind must always be open to learning, from any source it meets.”

The Armorer stopped Winta’s hand and took the large chunk of durasteel, turning it over. 

“This durasteel is ready. Come—we will start our work now.”

Winta tried to keep her motions controlled in an imitation of the Armorer, but she couldn’t help but let her excitement leak out as she jolted to her feet. Now  _ this  _ was the fun part.

Crossing the armory, the Armorer dropped the durasteel into the crucible, where it immediately spat sparks as it dissolved, some flecks landing on Winta’s oversized apron. She leaned forward to watch as the melted durasteel pooled into the cast of a child-sized pauldron. Blue flames sparked around the forge and hovered like benevolent spirits to watch the proceedings. With a warning to Winta, the Armorer took her tongs and lifted the cast, carrying it over to the recess of the forge. The durasteel, glowing molten orange, but still semi-shaped like the cast, floated beneath the giant hammer above as the Armorer maneuvered it into place.

“Go ahead, Winta.”

As she pressed the button, Winta hardly noticed the enormous  _ clang  _ as the mechanical hammer struck true. Steam whistled and screeched in the crevices as the hammer applied its pressure, until it finally lifted to reveal the roughly-shaped armor.

Suddenly, the tongs weighed heavily in Winta’s hands.

“Move the pauldron to the anvil. Today, you will learn how to strike metal.”

Winta could hardly believe her ears.

“...Really?”

“Quickly—you must strike the durasteel before it cools.”

Shaking her head to clear her surprise, Winta reached forward and grasped the pauldron between the tongs as the blue flames surrounding it lowered.

_ Don’t drop it,  _ she repeated to herself as she cautiously moved toward the anvil, holding the pauldron as far away from her as she could,  _ Don’t drop it, don’t drop it, don’t drop it. _

Thankfully, the pauldron found its place on the flat of the anvil without incident.

“Behind you.”

Winta felt the Armorer’s presence before it was announced. One of her arms, strong-looking, even through the gloves and layers, came to rest on Winta’s as she held the tongs steady. The other came into view on her right—bearing the hammer.

“Take this.”

For a moment, Winta hesitated. The Armorer’s hammer....it looked so heavy, so important—she wasn’t nearly important enough to even touch it, let alone wield it.

“I will not let you fall.”

Hesitantly, Winta’s hand wrapped around the warm metal handle of the hammer. The Armorer’s hand covered it in a near-vice like grip.

“Watch. Feel.”

The hammer rose. The hammer fell. Winta’s first strike.

It rose again. It fell again.

The Armorer’s left hand shifted ever so slightly, and the pauldron turned to another angle.

Rise. Fall.

“Breathe, Winta. The armor knows you by your breath.”

Air stuttered from Winta’s lungs as the hammer rose and fell once again.

“Time it with the hammer.”

And eventually, Winta lost all track of time outside of the armory. She lost all concept of  _ anything  _ outside the armory. All that remained was her, the Armorer, and the cooling pauldron that she was helping to shape. And in time, there were no longer even three entities, not even Winta herself—the armory was filled only with the breath of creation.

Rise. Fall. Rise. Fall.

In. Out.

“Good.”

The trance lifted like a veil. Winta wanted nothing more than to enter that place again.

“Take it to the quench.”

Still regaining a sense of the world around her, Winta shuffled to the barrel by the anvil and plunged the pauldron into it. After the crackling of the oil against the durasteel calmed to silence, she retrieved it again. The pauldron glistened in the dim light as the Armorer skated a file across it.

“Congratulations.” For the first time, Winta could almost sense some warmth behind the Armorer’s stern tone. “You have just forged your first piece of armor.”

/////

“ _ Ma-maaaaa! _ ”

Omera’s heart jumped into her throat as she heard Winta’s feet pounding down the hallway. Every single one of the worst possibilities ran through her head— _ someone’s chasing her. Someone tried to take her and she barely escaped. She’s scared. She burned herself on the Armorer’s tools. She— _

_ She’s wearing armor. _

As Winta careened around the corner into the living space, babbling at a hundred words a minute about how she forged her first piece of armor, yes, she did, lookit, she did it almost all by herself, it was  _ this  _ pauldron, that’s what it’s called, Mama, it’s called a pauldron, and she got to hammer it herself today isn’t that  _ awesome  _ Dad’s going to be so  _ proud _ —Omera froze. Winta—her baby, the little girl she had almost lost all those months ago, the child she had sworn to never let danger befall again—now jumped up and down in front of her, silvery plates fastened to her upper body glinting in the light filtering from the vent above them. Winta’s voice sounded excited, but the armor spoke in its own voice:

_ She is mine now. She is mine. She is mine. I will drag her into the dangers of the galaxy, and she will never return to you undamaged again. She may never even return— _

“Stay here.”

“But, Mama, what—"

“Stay. Here.”

Something boiled in the pit of Omera’s stomach and launched her forward—something not quite angry, but urgent, primal. As she raced into the hallway and toward the armory, she tried to tell herself to at least give this woman the due respect she deserved by her rank, by the deference that Din gave her. But the frantic crackling in her gut threw all respect, all concepts of ranking or seniority out into the air to dissipate.

The Armorer had her back to the entryway as Omera stormed inside.

“May I have a word?” Omera asked tersely, barely contained.

Slowly, the horned helmet turned over the Armorer’s shoulder.

“Yes. Of course.”

And it all exploded at once.

“What are your intentions with my daughter? Hm? Why is she wearing armor? Did you swear her to the Creed behind our backs?"

"Do you think I would do that?"

Omera scoffed.

"I've known you for a week—I have no idea what you would do. What  _ are _ you trying to do? Are you—are you trying to  _ groom  _ her, trying to make her into a warrior to go fight  _ your  _ battles for you?”

“Have you considered that Winta might have an individual desire to follow this path?”

“She’s a  _ child _ ! She doesn’t know what she wants yet! She just thinks this is all new and interesting, and that's fine. But you’re telling her that this is her life’s purpose, and that is  _ wrong. _ This place may not be as peaceful as the village I raised her in, and I know that she'll need to learn how to defend herself, but I will be damned before I let her become your—your— _ child soldier _ !”

As she spat the words into the tense, oppressive air around her, Omera thought she saw the Armorer wince, and the fire that sparked her tongue plummeted into ice. For a moment, she feared the ferocity that dared to challenge a warrior of the Armorer’s caliber and authority. The Armorer turned, and Omera’s hands curled into fists. She had never been much of a brawler, but if the Armorer chose to strike, Omera would at least go down swinging—terrified, regretful, but fighting all the same.

“Do you know how I met Din Djarin?”

Omera started.

“I...I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“You will. Sit with me. Please. I ask only for a few minutes of your patience.”

The Armorer knelt in her usual place. Taken aback at the lack of combat, Omera begrudgingly crouched in front of the Mandalorian woman, fists still clenched. The Armorer began her tale.

“I met Din Djarin many years ago when he was brought to Mandalore as a foundling, orphaned in the Clone Wars. He was timid, frightened—as most orphans of war tend to be, in my experience. I instructed him in the forging and function of weapons and armor, as well as in the lore and poetry of our people. Where most of his cohort neglected those latter lessons, Din clung to them. And in time, we became close. He would seek me out in his free hours to hear stories of our history, our heroes—tales of the culture that he embraced with open arms. I suspect I became his favored instructor, as the others were…”

The Armorer hesitated, and Omera imagined she was grimacing under her helmet.

“Harder to him, shall we say.”

A shudder ran down Omera’s back.

“Two years into his training on Mandalore," continued the Armorer, “the Empire overtook the planet and its colonies. On the Night of a Thousand Tears, they murdered thousands of recruits—thousands of children, hundreds of their mothers and fathers. Including Din Djarin’s.”

Omera’s mouth fell open. She had suspected that some tragedy lay under Din’s kindness, his protectiveness of his children, but she hadn’t imagined that he’d been subject to such a horror. The Armorer kept on.

“The details of that night are his to share as he wishes. But I will tell you that as I shared in the suffering of our people, and in Din Djarin’s suffering as a boy twice orphaned, I swore that I would watch over him, and whatever family he would come to have. That now includes you and your daughter.”

A weight dropped onto Omera’s body, and the sensation of being foreknown by the Armorer's vow overwhelmed her.

“I assure you, I have nothing but care for your daughter, and respect for you. Din told me how you rescued Winta from Imperials, after nearly losing her.” If it was possible, the Armorer shrank from a mythical figure to almost a real woman. “I, too, know what it means to be a mother who loses a child.”

It hardly seemed possible that this titan, this indestructible woman, could have at some time given birth, or carried a child in her arms, hers by blood or not. And yet, with surprising ease, Omera could picture the Armorer as a mother working at the anvil with a child strapped to her back—so eerily familiar.

Omera’s hand darted out and covered the Armorer’s before she could mediate her actions. 

“I am so sorry.”

The Armorer bowed her head.

“I am grateful that your child returned to you alive, where mine did not. But,” the Armorer made direct eye contact, gaze boring through her blank visor, “you must release the grief you cling to—the grief of what might have happened. Otherwise, Winta will not grow into all that she has the potential to be.”

The Armorer’s other hand covered Omera’s before she could pull away.

“She is a bright child,” said the Armorer. “You should be proud.”

Omera gave a half-suppressed laugh. It was all she could bring herself to do. And all she could fall back on was kindness.

“I am. Tell me about yours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week's uploading schedule is, for now, the same as it always has been: Saturdays at 4 pm EST. If that has to change, I'll post an update to my Tumblr (@poetryinmotion-author).  
> Again, thank you so much for sticking around! Your readership, whether you comment or not, means galaxies to me. Love you!


	12. Hand-Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Bazz chased after full consciousness like a child chases a dragonfly--full of stops and starts, near capture and losing visual."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends!  
> Just a heads-up in case you didn't see it on my Tumblr (@poetryinmotion-author). I am changing publication day to SUNDAYS at 4 PM. It just works out way better with my work schedule.  
> That being said, please enjoy this chapter and...please don't kill me.

Just above the equator of Tualak ran a belt of low mountains that the locals called the Giant’s Backbone. The nickname made sense, Mando mused as the Hawk’s Eye came out of lightspeed. From outside the atmosphere, his eye traced the sharp, stark-white extremes of the main ridge, rimmed on either side by lower, rounded foothills, sandy domes which eased gradually into mossy greens, until they vanished into thick grey mists. Somewhere in the valley between the ridge and the hills, their target waited. Karga had managed to buy them some time for repairs—a relatively simple process, especially when they provided a holo proving the quarry’s capture.

As Ellis glided closer to their coordinates, one of the peaks surfaced from the horizon, looking like an open sore just about to burst, with its summit an angry, deep red, recessed into the skin of the planet.

“I was afraid of that,” Ellis commented as they drew closer and prepared to land. “Why do people always feel the need to live near volcanoes?”

“You live on Nevarro.”

“So do you,” they rebutted, “but our volcanoes are underground. They’re slow, non-invasive, non-explosive.” They cast a wary glance at the mountain as the ship flew into its shadow. “This one looks...angry.”

Ellis made a landing on one of the plateaued foothills, where a small convoy in New Republic uniforms stood waiting. From what Mando could observe from his position, they didn’t exactly look pleased, shifting from one foot to another, leaning towards one another and making gestures towards the ship.

“Guess we kept them waiting,” Mando remarked with no small amount of sarcasm.

“Yeah, well,” said Ellis as they turned and entered the hold, “any of them say one word about it, they’re getting it from me.”

The hold was uncharacteristically quiet, with its three occupants seemingly frozen in their places. Tobalas teetered on the edge of the couch, hands quietly batting at his seat, looking at nothing in particular. Neh’naa’s hand gripped a pull bar by the hatch, even though the ship had found solid ground. And behind the plasma bars, Bazz waited, conscious, but still dozy from about three days of dreamless sleep.

“All right, everyone,” said Ellis, more to break the heavy silence than out of necessity, “let’s get this over with. Mando, you got him?”

In answer, Mando turned toward the cell. The plasma bars disappeared, along with the electric static that, for being as quiet as it was, now left a gaping hole in the soundscape. Taking Bazz’s bound wrists in his hand, Mando pulled Bazz to his unsteady feet. With shuffling, stumbling steps, he followed Mando toward the hatch.

“Guess I’ll do the talking, then,” Ellis murmured under their breath as the hatch fell. The four hunters and their quarry exited into the open air, thin from the altitude. With a stiff, forced smile, the seeming leader of the landing party stepped forward.

“I see you were successful,” he said, light tone a little too bright to be convincing.

From behind him, one of the soldiers chortled, then turned to a comrade and made a remark under his breath. As the leader reached for Bazz’s restraints, Ellis barred their arm across Bazz’s chest.

The leader’s hand stayed frozen in the air.

“We don’t have the money with us,” he said with a tight smile. “You need to come with us to base.”

“Oh, no, you’re misunderstanding,” corrected Ellis, putting on their own suspiciously pleasant tone. “This isn’t about money. I think,” they continued, their eyes darting to the soldiers, “this is more about mutual respect. See, we respect you as our client, and we’re glad that you’ve chosen to trust us to deliver this  _ very  _ important bounty. But I don’t think your people are showing us the same modicum of respect. One of them, for example, just turned to their little friend and said, ‘Took them long enough.’”

The offending soldier’s jaw set as their eyes widened.

“I don’t know if you realize this,” continued Ellis, “but bounty hunting can get very complicated. It isn’t as simple as, say, following orders. Now, we would be happy to continue this transaction—if you can keep your men in order.”

The leader cast a sharp glance over his shoulder, and the soldiers all straightened.

“Very well,” he conceded. “If you’ll follow us.”

As the hunters and clients descended from the mount, the air thickened, and as they reached the cloud layer, visibility decreased to near impossibility. But as the temperate forest started to surface through the fog, rain started to fall in droplets until it became a steady drizzle, soaking everyone to the skin and producing a monotone ringing against Mando’s beskar. Looking around him, Mando was grateful that only his soft parts were soaking up the rain. He even felt a little sorry for Neh’naa as she shivered. Wordlessly, before Mando could offer his cloak, Tobalas pulled his half-soaked jacket off and dropped it around Neh’naa’s shoulders.

After what felt like hours, the dim, foggy lights of a small camp came into view. The shadows of temporary shelters solidified as they came closer, and as the soldiers dispersed with a word from their leader, the hunters were ushered into the largest of the buildings.

The inside of the officer’s quarters was blessedly warm. In contrast to the cold, damp darkness outside, the glow of soft orange lanterns and the whirring of artificial heating units seemed almost too serendipitous to be real. Compared to the soaked-through reality, the interior was a palace, even with its simple trappings—a small cot to the side, a modest armoire, and an unadorned table at the center of it all, currently being used as a desk by a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a neatly-trimmed beard. As they entered, the officer looked up and quickly got to his feet, setting aside a holopad.

“Oh, please, come in!” The man’s reedy voice carried with concern as he directed his attention toward the soldier. “Did you not offer them any protection from the rain?”

“We didn’t have enough for everyone, sir.”

“Then you should have offered what you had to our guests. Go and get some dry clothes for them—would you like anything else?” he asked the four hunters. “Something hot to eat or drink?”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” Tobalas replied, despite Ellis’s glower in his direction.

The man smiled kindly.

“Bring some caff as well, then.”

The soldier nodded and left as the officer came around the table and held his hand out to each hunter in turn.

“I am so sorry I couldn’t greet you when you landed; I had business that kept me at camp. Cerridan Korvo,” the man introduced himself as he went down the line. When he came to Bazz, Cerridan gave him a careful once-over.

“Well,” Cerridan commented, voice hardening at the edges, “you were quite the troublemaker, weren’t you, BZ-3484?”

Bazz kept his eyes down, silent. After waiting for a moment for an absent reply, Cerridan turned his attention to Mando.

“So,” he said, voice awed, respectful as he held out his hand, “you’re the Mandalorian I’ve heard so much about.”

Instead of shaking hands, Mando readjusted his grip on Bazz’s restraints.

“Not sure how you’ve heard of me.”

Cerridan’s smile fell to one side as his hand retreated.

“Well,” he replied, “a man doesn’t just take out a squadron of our enemies single-handedly without the Republic hearing about it.”

“I wasn’t alone.”

“Regardless. You did us a great service without your even knowing it. And for that, I’d like to extend not only my personal thanks, but the thanks of our organization as well.”

Mando chafed at the profusion of gratitude, as well as the association he had lent credence to by his being a common enemy of the Empire. But he gave a single stiff nod as acknowledgement, if only to divert Cerridan’s attention away from him.

Cerridan turned once again to the room in general.

“Please, sit for a while. Rest.” Cerridan gestured to the chairs around his quarters. “I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Ellis interjected, stopping Tobalas before he could make himself comfortable, “but I’m sure I’m not the only one who would really like to get home.” Mando didn’t miss the knowing glance Ellis cast in his direction.

Cerridan’s eyes fell into a look that was almost too sympathetic.

“Oh, I’m sure,” he said as he bustled back around the desk. “I know I miss my own home something awful. The rain around here is enough to drive a man insane!”

With a grunt of effort, Cerridan hefted a large camtono onto the table and pushed it toward Ellis. For a moment, Din saw the camtono, then a small house, then two children playing in the yard, then himself sparring with his little girl while her mother looked on—but Mando shook him off.

_ Almost there. Almost there. _

With a gesture of thanks, Ellis took the camtono, arm jerking with the weight of it. Cerridan chucked.

“200,000 credits is a bit heavier than you’d think, isn’t it?” he joked. “I trust you’ll all put it to good use.”

_ You have no idea. _

“Please, Mandalorian,” he continued as he gestured to a chair, “set your quarry down there. My unit will take care of transferring him for interrogation.”

If he never had to see another Stormtrooper again, Mando mused as he roughly deposited Bazz into the indicated seat, it would be far too soon.

Ellis gave a courteous nod to their client.

“Thank you for your business,” Neh’naa chimed in as they all turned to leave.

“Thank you for doing it so well, dear. And please, when you all return to Nevarro, thank Karga for me for sending such a fine team.”

There was something there, something floating just underneath Cerridan’s voice—something that reminded Mando of a dulled razor blade. But, by the  _ ka’ra _ , the job was done, and it wasn’t Mando’s job to question the hand that kept him fed—kept his family fed.

And as the troop of hunters made their slow trudge back up the mountain, it became harder to resist sinking back into Din Djarin. 50,000 credits...Not only would this keep his children and his beloved fed, but it would keep them sheltered, clothed—safe, at long last, after months of running, hiding, subsistence, survival instead of living, truly living. It wouldn’t last them forever, but the foundation he could give them with that money certainly could.

“I knew I should have brought my cloak!” Neh’naa’s voice trembled as they all reentered the Hawk’s Eye. “Ellis, can we  _ please _ turn on the heat? I’m freezing!”

“You’re telling me!” Tobalas joined in. “You’re the one wearing my jacket!”

Neh’naa punched Tobalas lightly on the arm as they both plopped down on the banquette. 

“Hey, you offered it to me. And it didn’t do much anyway.”

In response, Tobalas yanked a blanket off the back of their seat and dropped it on Neh’naa’s head. The two quickly unfolded the blanket and spread it over their laps, huddling close together as the heat finally kicked on. Homesickness hit Din in the chest with the force of a physical blow. What he wouldn’t give to be warm, dry, under a blanket with someone he loved.

Dropping himself onto the opposite couch, Din hailed Karga on the comms, trying to keep his voice low.

“Mando!” Mando cringed. Karga’s voice was loud enough that he was sure everyone could hear. “Any problems with the hand-off?”

“No. Everything went well. Karga,” he asked under his breath, casting a glance at the camtono Ellis had set down on the table, “do you happen to know anyone selling a house?”

Karga paused for a moment.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Why? Looking to put down roots?”

Din smirked.

“You could say that.”

/////

Bazz chased after full consciousness like a child chases a dragonfly—full of stops and starts, near capture and losing visual. But he finally caught up to the world around him as Mando slammed him into a chair. His surroundings swam into view—sparse, but warm. Words came, too; the phrase “Thank you for your business” reminded him that the deal was done. He was a bounty, transferred. Revulsion and resistance slowly bubbled to the surface.

“You know I don’t have anything valuable for the Republic, right?” His voice sounded far away, even in his own ears.

“Yes.”

Even in half-cognizance, that answer startled Bazz.

“...And you know that I’m a deserter, right?”

“Oh, yes.” The answer emanated from a man just outside Bazz’s clouded field of vision. “That’s why you’re here. You’re a traitor to the Empire, BZ-3484—a small, insignificant traitor, but a traitor nonetheless. And you must answer for that crime.”

The man leaned in, and the floor beneath Bazz seemed to fall out in sheer terror.

“But you have done one important thing for us that makes you worth the catch. You provided a bounty that Din Djarin couldn’t resist.”

Bazz blinked, shook his head, tried to remember ever hearing that name before.

“Who...who the hell’s…”

And it hit him like a lightning strike—the memory of the Mandalorian with his arm around a woman in his flower shop. She called him Din. What a beautiful voice she had. And how tenderly the Mandalorian had held her waist as she held the hand of a little girl, and he held a boy, a little, strange child—

“No. No, no, no.”

“Now, we know the location of a far better prize than you.”

“But he...but he’s got a family,” Bazz slurred as urgently as he could.

“We know. That’s why we’re going after him.”

The man turned to a soldier as they entered.

“Take this traitor somewhere. I’ll deal with him later. And bring in the asset.”

As he was lifted forcibly into the air, Bazz fell into unconsciousness again.

/////

As the asset entered, General Janus Ferizbee looked up from his holopad, where a message to Moff Gideon was pending his approval.

“Well,” he said, keeping his voice light. “You know where he’s headed. Do you think you can do your job now?”

A sultry voice crooned against the dark, with the flash of a nasty smile.

“With pleasure.”


	13. Lucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their bodies swayed with the effort of the embrace—the effort of expressing the inexpressible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies, gents, and non-binary friends...it is finally Soft!Din hours once again.

This would be the last row of the blanket—of that much, Omera was certain. What had, at the beginning of the week, been a disorganized pile of rust red woolen fiber had been hand-spun into yarn, and was now woven into an enormous comforter that would be certain to keep her and Din warm for whatever Nevarro's winter looked like. Even as she finished the last knots, she could feel herself starting to sweat under the weight of it.

She held the work at arm's length, giving it a critical eye. Beside her, the baby cooed in his cradle, almost as if he were giving his opinion. She chuckled.

"Well," she said, half to her son and half to herself, "I hope your father likes it. He wasn't exactly forthcoming about how he liked the color. He certainly seemed more enthusiastic about this one than the green I was considering."

Omera squinted and ran her fingers along the edge.

"Should I put a border on it?"

And from behind her, a familiar voice answered.

"I think it's perfect."

/////

There was a moment, after Omera whipped around and made eye contact with him, where time stood absolutely still. Din committed to memory the way Omera's face shifted from neutral, guarded surprise to joy; her eyes widened to full moons, then waned to half-crescents as her lips separated into an utterance of his name, his  _ real  _ name. Her hands released her work and propelled her out of the bed, and in two steps—

_ Home. _

Din lifted her off of her feet as her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders and she buried her face in his cowl. One of her hands came to the back of his helmet and stroked as if searching for his hair. He shivered as her fingers snuck under the edge of his helmet and wound around the curls at the nape of his neck. After a moment, Din heard her lips press against his cheek-plate. His grasp tightened, hands splayed between her shoulderblades and lower back. Their bodies swayed with the effort of the embrace—the effort of expressing the inexpressible.

The urgency of Din's longing came flooding back. He released Omera for an aching second as he hurriedly pulled the helmet from his head. Omera took it, deposited it onto the bed, and he shuddered as her hands cupped his face and brought him in for a keldabe kiss. He clutched her close again, thrilling at the sensation of being touched on his bare skin after so long apart. As her hands migrated into his matted hair, Din burrowed his face into her neck, finally allowing himself to be held. Mando, the job, and all its complications finally faded away.

" _ Omera. _ "

"Welcome home, my love." Her breath felt warm and sweet against his ear.

Din surfaced again, only to dive back in as he caught Omera's mouth in a kiss. One of his hands toyed with the braid falling down her back, and he wished he'd thought to take his gloves off. Din nuzzled his nose against hers as the kiss deepened—

Suddenly, Din's head jerked backwards of its own accord. He tried to lean back in to no avail—some invisible wall seemed to be separating him from Omera. Grin broadening, Din looked over Omera's shoulder at the culprit.

"Oh, I see," he said, releasing Omera and making his way over to the cradle. "I don't get to kiss Mama until I come say 'hi' to you, do I?"

The baby squealed in delight as his father hoisted him into the air and caught him again, nestling him close to his chest. Din pressed a kiss to the child's velvet-soft head and scratched behind one of his ears.

"How's my little boy, huh? Did you behave yourself for Mama?"

"There were a few moments," Omera responded with a laugh, "but I'd say he was a very good boy. Hardly slept, though."

Omera sighed and sat back down on the bed. Din followed suit, tucking the baby into the crook of his arm and draping the other over Omera's shoulders.

"Though, to be fair, none of us did," Omera added as she leaned in to Din's embrace.

None of us...Din stopped and took count of his family, only to find one member missing.

"Wait. Where's—?"

" _ Daaaaaaaaad! _ "

In a blur of soft brown curls and silver shapes that Din couldn't quite make out, Winta barreled into the room and launched herself onto the bed, clambering over her mother and settling in Din's lap, nearly choking him with the force of her arms around his neck. And though he was overjoyed to be able to hold his daughter in his arms again, the ringing sound her body made on impact was decidedly out of place.

"Easy, Winta!" Omera exclaimed. "Let your father breathe!"

Winta rocked back on her heels, and Din finally saw what had made the sound.

"Look, Daddy! We match!"

Something more than pride—something much more profound—swelled in his chest as he took in the sight of his little warrior girl, clad in her own temporary armor.

"...So we do," he said, at a loss for any other words.

"The Armorer says that my chestplate's made from  _ your  _ beskar! Isn't that cool?"

The more-than-pride now took whatever breath he had and stopped it in his throat.  _ His  _ daughter. Of all the foundlings who might have inherited his donation,  _ his  _ daughter was the one he now indirectly protected.

"Very cool." His voice sounded faint in his own ears.

"And I made this part myself!" Winta rambled on, pointing to one of her pauldrons. "The Armorer showed me how! She's teaching me all kinds of cool stuff! Like this:  _ ba'jur, beskar'gam, ara'nov, aliit, Mando'a, Mand'alor, an vencuyan mhi! _ I finally remembered the whole thing in Mando'a! And—"

"Winta, settle down, okay?" Omera's hand wrapped around Din's and anchored him back to reality as he fought against the feelings that threatened to overwhelm him. "Give your father some space."

Sheepishly, Winta's gaze dropped.

"Sorry."

But Din pulled her back into a hug—if only to try and hide the fact that tears were about to start falling. 

"Don't you be sorry,  _ verd'ika, _ " Din said as he regained his composure and held his daughter at arm's length. "I'm so proud of you."

The beam Winta gave him was the brightest he'd seen in almost a year. And, as he came back into himself, Din remembered something that might make it even brighter. He gestured to the doorway.

"Winta, I dropped my bag by the door. Can you bring it here? It's heavy, so be careful."

Winta nodded and bounded off to her task. Reaching across Din, Omera took the baby into her lap and shifted to make room for their daughter. With a grunt, Winta heaved the bag off of the floor and shuffled back to the bed, dropping the bag in Din's lap before climbing between her parents.

"All right," Din said as he opened the large satchel. "Let's see what we've got here…"

"Din, what did you do?" Omera's voice carried her smile for her.

"Nothing much. Just a little something…"

Din rummaged in his pack until his hand landed on his target. He withdrew his hand, offering a small, beautifully-painted wooden box to Winta. She gasped.

"Another puzzle box?"

"Not quite. Turn that knob on the back a few times, then open it."

After carefully following the instructions, Winta opened the lid. From inside the box, a simple melody started to play in time with a tiny holo of a graceful dancer. 

"Oh, it's  _ beautiful, _ " said Omera, tucking an arm behind Winta to reach for one of Din's shoulders.

"Thank you, Daddy!" Winta exclaimed, giving Din another hug before climbing off the bed to put the music box with her other belongings, neatly organized by her bedroll.

Din put his hand back into his bag and pulled out a little stuffed frog, colored suspiciously like the ones native to Sorgan. Immediately, the child in Omera's lap latched onto the plush, not hesitating to put it in his mouth, despite it being too large for him to eat.

"Figured you'd like that," Din chuckled. "And now,  _ cya're… _ " He reached into the satchel one last time.

"Din, you didn't."

"I did."

Omera let out a sigh that might have been frustrated if there wasn't so much teasing behind it.

"You didn't have to bring me anything—just you, safe and alive."

"I know," Din replied, meeting her eyes, "but these—" he handed her a flat, mid-sized wooden chest, "were going to go to waste if I left them."

Curious in spite of herself, Omera opened the chest. Inside were ten small compartments sealed with transparisteel lids. And each little box was filled with seeds, most of which Din couldn't recognize—but from Omera's gasp, he knew she did.

"I figured you would need them to start the garden at the new house."

Omera's eyes darted back to him, and it took all of Din's self control not to blurt out his last carefully-planned surprise. 

"I actually would have been home sooner," he continued, assuming an air of nonchalance, "but I needed to make sure everything went smooth with the transfer."

Opening a pouch on his belt, Din took out a key card and slid it into Omera's hand.

"That's your copy. I've got one, too. The house is a fair distance from here, but—"

Omera kissed him soundly, taking whatever he was about to say out of his mouth. And despite Winta's groan of disgust, Din only leaned in further. When they released, they remained so close that Din could feel the relief coming off of Omera in waves.

"Well, then," Omera murmured, voice shaking with excitement, "I guess we'd better pack up?"

Din nodded.

"Then never again," he replied.

_ I promise. _


	14. Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In fact, everything about the house, whether broken or malfunctioning, or a little too small, was perfect to Omera. It was part of the house that belonged to them—to her family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's chapter is another voyage into Soft territory--please enjoy while it lasts :)

Though the ground stubbornly fought her at every turn, Omera was glad to finally be working in the soil again. The blade of the hoe she’d found had nearly rusted over, but underneath the oxidized layer, the steel still stood solid. She swung again, the wood of the handle grooving against her palms. Another crack opened beneath her—victory. She pulled the hoe back and found exactly what she’d been hoping for: dark, soft earth.

“Volcanic soil,” she heard her mother’s voice, “only needs a little patience and it will give you anything you ask for.”

From the other yard, Din’s voice counted aloud. Omera smiled as she stood and listened. In the week he’d been home, Din had hardly allowed himself to rest. Aside from giving her every detail of his plans for the house—the hydraulic door was a little loud, the kitchen could use a little more space, they’d eventually need another room built on for Winta when she outgrew sharing with her baby brother—he’d also begun training Winta.

The first time Winta had begged Din to start training her, Omera had put her foot down: “Your father has been home for a day and a half, and most of it has been spent moving us here. Have some patience.” But eventually, they’d both worn her down.

Omera struck into the soil in time with Din’s voice, considering when she would decide to break them for lunch. They’d been up since before dawn—an impressive feat, considering how difficult it had often been to rouse Winta for her daily chores. Omera chuckled. The enthusiasm wouldn’t last. Tomorrow morning, she would be groaning into her pillow and asking for five more minutes.

Stepping back from her work, Omera leaned on the hoe and considered her own plans. The seeds Din had brought her were more than enough to be getting on with. She’d been astonished by the variety, the even mix of flowers and vegetables. There had even been a jogan tree seed, which she was particularly excited about. She had fond memories of making jogan fruit jam with her mother when she was a little girl, and she looked forward to making those memories with Winta, though that day was still a long way off.

Then, of course, there was the flame-lily seed. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her apron and ran her fingers along the ridges, contented with the memories of the day Din had given it to her. She knew exactly where it would be planted: the centerpiece of a garden she never thought she'd have.

Now, Omera considered placement for the rest of the garden.

_ The jogan tree near the back, shade flowers next to it, though I’ll need to grow the shade flowers inside or by the house for now—vegetables along the edge of the flower bed, especially the melons, they need plenty of space— _

“Mama!”

Omera jumped, startled from her train of thought by Winta’s voice.

“Mama! Come look what I can do!”

Laying down the hoe, Omera wiped her hands on the front of her apron and made her way around to the front of their small house. It was perched on a flat landing in one of the mesas overlooking the town, and in spite of herself, Omera was grateful for the good defensive positioning. 

_ Just in case, _ she reassured herself.  _ In the worst, unlikeliest case. _

At least the town looked less gritty, less dangerous from up here. Here, they would make their own safe haven.

As she entered the front yard, Winta immediately knelt on the ground.

“Look, Mama! I can do twenty now!”

Winta inched her feet back and held herself up on her hands, then lowered her upper body to the ground. She cheerfully counted out each pushup, and Omera couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re getting so strong already!” Omera encouraged as Winta finished her demonstration and sat back on her heels.

“Of course she is.” Din came and knelt beside Winta, clapping her on the back. “She’s a Mandalorian.”

“Well, I think  _ both  _ of my Mandalorians have earned a break.” Omera crossed to the front door and pressed her key card to the sensor. As the hydraulic door opened with a wheeze, she gestured them both inside.

“Aw! But we were just going to start learning how to throw a punch!”

“Your mother’s right, Winta,” Din concurred, scooping the baby up from where he sat on the ground, playing with his already-worn stuffed frog. “We need to eat to keep our energy up. Come on.”

With a conceding nod, Winta preceded both of her parents into the house.

“Sorry we can’t have the windows open all day,” Din apologized as the door closed behind him.

Omera turned to him as he took off his boots in the tiny space just inside the door.

“Would you stop apologizing?” she replied. “We can’t risk the Creed being broken. Besides, it’s better to keep the windows closed in the heat of the day. Keeps the cool in.”

Or whatever the air  _ could  _ be called; it certainly wasn’t cold. That was another of Din’s jobs. The ancient aircon unit rattled beside the back door, spitting lukewarm air back into the house. 

But, for Omera, it was perfect, even in its imperfections. In fact, everything about the house, whether broken or malfunctioning, or a little too small, was perfect to her. It was part of the house that belonged to them—to her family. And as the four of them crowded into the tiny kitchen to try and make something to eat, Omera wouldn’t trade it for a palace.

/////

Din couldn’t help but be a little dramatic.

This was one of his favorite tales, after all, and his children had requested it for their bedtime story. So, as he balanced on the edge of Winta’s bed, watching her try to stifle a yawn as she cuddled closer to her mother, Din lowered his tone and brought his hand out to mimic the motions of the hero of the story. He recited the tale with as much gravitas as he could muster:

“And so, with its components finally united,

Tarre Vizsla took his well-crafted, hard-won

Saber in his dominant hand, and

As if responding to its master’s touch,

His grip, gentle but sure on its handle,

The blade burst forth—not the

Boldly colored column of his companions,

But a true Mandalorian blade, 

Double-edged, honed to bright edges

Against the glowing black core,

Deeper than even the darkest

Reaches of the galaxy.

‘Darksaber I name you,’ the great Mand’alor

Said, “for though you are void and empty,

Cold in your reflection, you will bring

Fullness to my people, and warmth and

Light to my children’s children.’”

The yawn that Winta had been suppressing finally escaped. Din gave a low laugh.

“I think that's enough for tonight,” he said. Winta nodded sleepily, handing the already-sleeping baby to Din. He stood and took a moment to stroke his son’s soft cheek before laying him down in his cradle.

“That’s a cool story, Dad,” Winta said through a yawn as Omera tucked the blankets in around her. “Is it real?”

Din shrugged.

“As far as anyone can tell. Tarre Vizsla was real, for sure. And the Darksaber was, allegedly, a real sword. But nobody’s actually seen it—at least, not in recent memory.”

“Can we learn about swords tomorrow?”

The smile broadened on Din’s face. That had been his own reaction when he’d heard The Lay of Tarre Vizsla for the first time. He’d spent whole lessons daydreaming about charging onto the battlefield with all his  _ vod’e _ , the Darksaber flashing in his hand.

“We’ll see.”

“But for now,” Omera added as she kissed Winta good night, “you need to sleep, my little warrior.”

A silent sigh of relief shuddered through Din’s body. Omera was finally opening to the possibility of Winta training, and Din was now sure that the same pride he felt in his daughter now rested on Omera’s shoulders.

“See you bright and early, kiddo,” Din said as he leaned down to hug Winta close.

“Night, Daddy. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Din closed the door of the children’s bedroom quietly behind him.

“You know,” Omera murmured, coming to Din and slipping a hand into his, “when I first met you, I never expected you to like poetry.”

Din took Omera’s other hand.

“Why’s that?”

Omera shrugged.

“I don’t know. Poetry, to me, was always about sweeping romance and love stories—not necessarily battles and sword-making.”

A blush started crawling across Din’s face.

“Well...not all Mandalorian poetry’s like that.”

A sly grin pricked at the corner of Omera’s mouth.

“Oh, really?”

Din’s heart fluttered against his ribcage at the lowering of Omera’s tone.

“One of the first poems I memorized was called  _ The Marriage of Parek and Damina _ . Does that sound like a war poem to you?”

“Do you still remember it?”

As much as he wished he could keep holding her hands, Din brought his touch to her face, tucking a stray hair behind her ear before cupping her face in his hands. He whispered a kiss against her lips and began to speak.

“And when Parek Vizsla saw her deeds,

He beat his breast and thanked the  _ ka’ra _

For bringing their lifepaths twain:

‘For though I am unworthy of such,’ he said,

‘You have seen fit to bless me with her—

Her who is the most of the Mandalore,

For she is bright and fierce and furious.

In carriage, she is noble, like the Taung 

Of old. She holds her head high in battle.

She takes her enemies and brings them shame.

And yet as much as she is merciless

To those who would wrong the children of Mandalore,

She finds space in her soul to be kind to me,

To spare me her mercy and her eye.

And I find her almost too beautiful in soul

To be of this world. I am unworthy, I say,

Of her love, and yet she gives it freely to me.

What man am I, who is to be given

Such a gift?’”

The two of them stood speechless for a moment, still awash in the passion of Din’s words. Then, the stillness broke as Omera wound her arms around Din’s neck and kissed him, softly at first, barely more than a brush of lips against each other, before Din pulled her against his chest, deepening the kiss further. Her mouth softened against his, and a sensation that was both blistering hot and freezing cold descended down his body. When Omera moved to press her mouth against his jaw, he lost all coherent thought as his knees buckled. Omera laughed and burrowed into his embrace.

“Too much, my love?”

“A little bit.”

“That’s okay.” One of Omera’s hands came to the back of Din’s head, pressing him ever closer. “If we stayed here forever, I’d be satisfied.”

Suddenly, every limb of Din’s body felt like lead. All he could think of was her, only her, holding him in her arms in the warmth of their bed. He hated to pull away, but he hated even more staying away from that beautiful space they'd created together.

Din took one of her hands in his and silently led her to their bedroom. The door fell closed with a small click. The house fell into quiet.

/////

Nights on Nevarro were idiosyncratic. Where on most planets, nights were crowded with the sounds of the night life of a city, or the hum of insects and nocturnal animals, Nevarro fell almost completely silent. Anything that made a sudden move echoed like a shout in the void.

It was a good thing, then, that silence was one of the qualifying traits of her job.

She’d been given bad intel on the outset, landing her on the opposite side of the planet. The man responsible didn’t survive to regret that mistake. Now, after commandeering a speeder bike from a cantina and riding almost three days straight, here she stood at the foot of the mesa, boring holes in the little house with her gaze.

She smirked. It would be all too easy. Up on that hill, so far away from the rest of the city…

No one would hear them scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said....while it lasts ;)  
> ALSO! I asked this question over on my Tumblr (@poetryinmotion-author), but I figured I would ask here, too. I found a relatively easy self-publishing service, and was wondering if anybody would want to have a physical copy of In the Aftermath. It would probably be about eight dollars apiece, and, since I *technically* can't sell the book outright because Copyright, you would technically be buying a homemade bookmark. Trying to gauge interest before making any decisions!  
> Anyhoo, see you next week for the resolution of this cliffhanger. Fight the good fight. :)


	15. Shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd come so far. He'd been so close.

There is a moment just before one falls asleep where every sound, every breeze brushing across skin, every change in the atmosphere is heightened, so that even the drop of a pin echoes like blastershot in a canyon. And as Winta lay in her bed, just barely inside that moment, she heard something strange: the click of a window latch.

Winta's eyes fluttered open, and as they started to adjust to the light, she heard a window slowly opening. Her brow furrowed. She hadn't heard her parents' door open, or their footsteps preceding the sound of the night air leaking into the house.

She rolled on her side and peeked through the half-open bedroom door. Suddenly, an unfamiliar shadow appeared against the wall—a shadow with a strangely-shaped head and another, longer shadow extending from its hand.

A cold chill took root in Winta's stomach. Someone had broken into their house. And as the shadow shifted and the floorboards creaked, Winta came to the realization that she and her family were in great danger.

She had to do something.

Every limb of her body trembling, Winta pushed away her blanket and swung her legs over the side of her bed. Her bare feet felt every inch of the floor as if she'd stepped on a block of ice.

She could scream. No. She would die. The bad guy was closer than her parents, probably faster, too. She had no other choice.

_In order to be brave_ , Winta paraphrased the Armorer's words,  _you have to be terrified._

The gap in the door was exactly Winta's size, and as she crept along the wall and entered the common room, she held back a sigh of relief. The figure was facing away from her—good. But that relief faded. The figure was tiptoeing down the hall, towards Mom and Dad's room.

A knife glinted in the moonlight—

Mom and Dad were in danger.

Mom and Dad were going to die.

If she didn't do something,  _right now._

Winta curled her fists just the way Dad had taught her that afternoon—thumb crossed over her fingers, back of her hand level with her wrists. She took a deep breath and held them up to her face.

_Verd'ika_ , Dad called her.  _Little warrior._ Hundreds and thousands of warriors stood behind her.

_Take heart, little one_ , their voices said.  _Your first battle begins now._

With as powerful a shout as she could manage, Winta charged.

Her fist connected with the small of the figure's back, just between two fleshy extensions coming from its head. Another blow to the back as the figure turned. The back of a dusty purple hand struck her with such force that her face went numb as she landed across the room. But as she scrambled to get to her feet, to continue the fight, to  _win_ the fight for her family, the figure lunged and straddled her, snarling, baring sharpened teeth under beady eyes.

Silver flashed against the dark.

Winta screamed as she launched an open hand at the demon's jaw—

/////

How long had it been since he’d strangled someone with his bare hands?

As Din’s fingers wrapped around the Twi’lek’s windpipe and pulled her off of Winta, the answer became clear.

Too long.

The Twi’lek’s back hit the ground and in the light creeping in from the broken-into window, a familiar face sneered at him. 

He straddled Xi’an and caught her wrists in one of his hands. He threw a punch with his other fist, but she dodged with a cackle.

“You’ve been cheating on me.”

Din might have vomited if he weren’t wearing his helmet, or in the middle of trying to kill a nightmare.

Lithe, strong legs latched around his waist and before Din could do anything, Xi’an was on top. His stomach swooped. One arm was pinned under her knee, while his other hand grabbed at her wrist. She slashed at him, knife shredding the edge of his nightshirt and nicking the hollow of his throat. Bile rose as Xi’an ran her papery tongue on his neck to catch a bead of his blood. 

“Well?” she hissed against his throat as she brought the blade closer to his jugular. “Who is she?”

Din could feel the humming of the vibroblade against his skin. Winta’s voice wavered to his ears, screaming for him. 

“I’m coming, Dad!”

“No!” Din barked, breath strained under Xi’an’s weight.

_ No. My daughter isn’t going to die because of—of— _

Din’s muscles coiled as he prepared to—

Xi’an screamed. The vibroblade clattered to the floor as her body left him. Who—?

“Omera!”

She swung Xi’an around by her lekku, white-knuckle grip yanking at every last nerve ending attached directly to her brain. She flung Xi’an into the table, slamming her spine against its edge. Xi’an fell into a crouch to regain her bearings. With a growl that chilled Din to his core, Omera snatched an iron pan from the kitchen and struck it against Xi’an’s hand as she tried to use the table to stand. Omera backhanded the pan across Xi’an’s face and sent her sprawling, dazed and groaning. Though their adversary was clearly incapacitated, Omera fell on her anyhow and smashed the pan on the flat of Xi’an’s face. And, for the first time since he’d met her, Din heard Xi’an whimper—almost pitiful.

Omera raised the iron again—

_ She’s going to kill her— _

“Wait!” he yelled.

“ _ Why?!”  _

Din’s heart stopped. As she whipped around to face him, Omera’s loose hair frayed around her face, taken over with an anger that felt unnatural—the set of Omera’s jaw could have cut beskar, and there, just behind her pupils—there it was. Something he thought her incapable of. Hatred.

“We need to know who sent her.”

After a moment tenuous as a muscle stretched near to snapping, the clang of iron against the floor rang through the air. Two shuddering breaths. The baby’s waking whimpers from the children’s room. The choking of the assassin still pinned beneath Omera’s gaze and the pressure of broken bone.

“Who is she?”

Din cringed as he got to his feet and came to Omera’s side.

“Someone I used to work with.” The words tasted bitter and vile on his tongue—the admittance, however small, of his past.

“Someone you used to work with,” Omera echoed faintly. “She just tried to kill our daughter.”

“I think she was targeting me.”

“Yes,” Omera spat, “because that makes things better.”

Violence fit Omera’s voice like his first ever beskar’gam—too tight, too small.

“Dad’s right though. She was—”

“Winta!”

All of the razor edge from Omera’s voice immediately dulled as she stepped over Xi’an’s feebly stirring form and knelt in front of Winta, pulling her into a crushing embrace.

“Winta, sweetheart, are you okay? Let me look at you.”

Omera pulled back and took Winta’s face in her hands, running a thumb over her split lip.

“I’m okay, Mama—"

“Look at you, you’re bleeding!”

“But Dad is, too!”

Turning back to Din, Omera finally noticed his wound for the first time, and the smeared red trail left by Xi’an’s tongue. Omera sprang to her feet and ran back over to Din’s side, leaning in for a closer look.

“Din, are you all right? How deep is that?”

“It’s fine.”

His own voice rang hollow in his ears. As hideous, as horrible as the sight at his feet was, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He’d come so far. He’d been so close. He’d almost settled in to this beautiful new life he’d found, surrounded by his son, his daughter, his beloved—it had felt so surreal, but fitting, so  _ right _ , to finally live with his heart less guarded, protected from the cruelties of the world by more than his own effort—how beautiful it had been to finally  _ breathe _ —

Xi’an’s spittle dripped with blood between her teeth and landed on the floor of their new home—Omera had just cleaned that floor—just a few hours ago, they’d eaten dinner—dinner _he’d_ made—the baby had dropped some of his supper— _Din_ had made supper that night—in _that_ pan, now coated with blood—no. No, no, no. Omera had—Omera, _Omera_ —

Her voice echoed down a blood-rush hallway.

“Winta, go get in bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“But, Mama—”

“Now.”

Din barely heard Winta’s soft footfalls, or the closing of her bedroom door. Omera’s voice invaded again.

“Din. Who is she really?”

A torrent of memories flooded his mind. Fights, shootouts by the side of the woman at his feet—the sickening relief of afterwards, in the dark, red-soaked and carnal—all the awful things he’d been satisfied to be—

“Din!”

Din sucked in a breath and finally turned to face Omera. Her face had changed, not softened. If anything, she looked as though she was barely hanging on.

“Why didn’t you let her die?”

_ Let me kill her. _ The subtext was blatant. What had his past done to her?

“Puck on her belt,” he finally choked. “Someone sent her. Need to know who.”

Omera crouched and removed the puck from Xi’an’s belt. Her finger landed on the switch, and Din’s helmeted visage flickered into the night, with the Aurebesh detailing his height, weight, skill sets, last known location—Sorgan—

Suddenly, Omera hurled the puck at the opposite wall, and it shattered into shards on the floor. Even with her back to him, Din could see her visibly trembling. He approached her and rested a hand on her shoulder—

Omera pulled away.

“Din,” she said, her voice as tremulous as her body, “we’ve never had to discuss this before, but I’m going to say it now. Please. Don’t touch me when I’m angry.”

She was angry. With him. It  _ had  _ to be with him. Didn’t it? It was his fault. All his fault. He hated every inch of himself, and suddenly feared that Omera thought the same.

“Now get this—this Twi’lek _ bitch _ —” Din flinched at the first instance of such coarseness he’d heard from her— “out of our house and deal with her. Or I will.”

She walked away. The door to the children’s room opened and closed with a snap.

Din was alone.

/////

Behind the door, Omera’s lower lip wobbled. The harshness she’d allowed her voice to have galled her. She needed to apologize. Her poor family, her poor Din, dragged again into everything he’d so desperately tried to leave behind…

But as she turned to reenter the common room, she heard the hydraulic door open and close. 

He was gone.

She rested a shaking palm on the door. Shameful, angry tears burned down her face.

Omera was alone.

/////

“Mama?”

In an instant, Mama was on the bed, clutching her and her brother close, letting hot tears turn her hair wet.

Winta’s hands still ached, but she didn’t feel like bringing it up. Her whole life, Mama had taken care of her. But now, Mama needed to be taken care of. And Dad wasn’t here.

She held Mama’s hand, let her cry. The baby put his tiny hand over his big sister’s. Winta was surrounded by the weight of everything.

Just as she glanced into her lap, the baby met her eye, almost as if he was staring at her the whole time. His wide eyes felt like home.

Winta wasn't alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. I need to go have a lie down after writing that. Hope you enjoyed. :)


	16. Prisoner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This, and all the dangers that befell the family he loved were centered squarely on him—on his past, on his mistakes, on all those wrong choices.
> 
> "They don't deserve this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick heads-up: this one's intense. If you're a little squeamish about injuries or triggered by PTSD, please go ahead and skip this one.

Din was certain that if a stiff breeze happened to pass him, he would shake apart into nothing but shimmering metal plates and ragged underclothes.

The moonlight filtering from the vent above washed out Xi'an's skin until it looked almost white. The blood loss couldn't have helped matters. Her head lolled forward, dripping blood from her mouth and broken nose onto her filthy shirt. Normally, Din would have enjoyed this moment, in a sick, karmic way. For all the sins Xi'an had committed against bounties, against innocents, against him, being tied up underground without so much as a scrap of gauze to soak up her blood was the least she deserved.

But every time Din looked up to make sure Xi'an was still alive, he could only think of the woman that, for however brief a time, had taken over Omera and made her ruthless, merciless, even bloodthirsty; Omera, his refuge from the cruelties that lurked in the galaxy and lived in his mind, had, herself, been transfigured into the very thing he desperately wanted to escape. One look into her eyes, and Din knew that his word had been the only thing keeping Omera from pounding Xi'an's face in until it was unrecognizable as having ever been alive—only so much fragmented bone and sticky scarlet across their kitchen floor.

And her voice. The thunder of it, the crackle of lightning, the strike, violent like he'd never heard before—it had been directed at  _ him. _

_ Rightfully so _ , Din reminded himself. This, and all the dangers that befell the family he loved were centered squarely on him—on his past, on his mistakes, on all those wrong choices.

_ They don't deserve this. _

A low whistle from behind him. He knew the owner immediately—it was about time she showed up. A minute longer would have been too long to take.

“Well, you weren't kidding,” Cara said as she loped into the room. Din stood to face her, unprepared for the relief of not looking at...

“Why would I be?”

Cara shrugged. She cast her gaze over Din's shoulder and shook her head.

“Honestly, I'm surprised she's not dead with the number you did on her face.”

“I didn't.”

Cara's brows came together in confusion, then sprang up as she made eye contact with him.

“So you're saying that  _ Omera— _ ”

Inside his armor, Din's soul flinched.

“Yes.” 

Stunned, Cara surveyed the assassin’s broken face more closely, taking into account every fragment of bone that pebbled under her skin, the fresh purple bruising, the congealed blood in a line from her nose to her mouth.

“...Wow. Remind me to never get her angry.”

The pit in the center of Din’s chest widened, smoldered at the edges. Somehow, in all this time, he’d missed that lesson. 

In front of him, Cara shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“So, let me get this straight,” she said. “This Twi’ breaks into your house, tries to murder you, and you stop Omera from killing her...why, exactly?”

Din pulled in a breath to reply.

“She had a puck. Someone sent her for me. And I need to know who so it doesn’t happen again.”

Cara nodded.

“Right. So what do you need me for?”

“I need backup. To keep watch, if you can.”

Cara nodded again, slower, eyes squinting slightly, as if she were trying to look into Din’s mind.

“For someone out there? Or on you?”

A gurgling cackle dragged its fingers down Din’s spine.

“Don’t worry, love,” Xi’an rasped as they turned to her. “He’s not going to proposition me.” She leaned back, exposing her neck, knees drifting apart. “Not that I would mind if he did.”

“Never,” Din spat.

“Well, don’t say  _ that. _ ” Air whistled quietly through the spaces where two of her teeth would have been. “You’ll hurt my poor feelings.”

Din’s hackles bristled. “We both know you don’t have those.”

Xi’an shrugged, wrists pulling awkwardly at her restraints. “Ah, well. It was worth a shot.”

Her beady eyes ran the length of Din, head to toe. Her tongue tried to click, but, too swollen to properly latch, it only made a soft ‘pop’ against her palate.

“So...Mando, the family man. I see you’ve made good since we last met.”

“And I see you made it out of the cage.”

“Well, of course I did!” She tried to contort her face into a look of offense, but hissed a breath through her teeth as the muscles refused to cooperate. “You put me in there with no due process—for shame.”

“How’d you get out?”

Xi’an smirked. “A lady never tells.”

Beside him, Cara stepped forward, a hand going to the blaster on her hip.

“I think you will,” she threatened.

Xi’an’s gaze darted to Cara, and her head pulled back in surprise.

“Oh, and who’s  _ this  _ one? Have you got a little harem now?” Xi’an hummed. “Never pegged you for the polygamous type.” 

Din tried to control the breath that made his lungs a vacuum, but it was too late. Xi’an’s lekku perked, and her eyes narrowed.

“Though,” she continued, “I did like the one with the dumpy little nightgown.”

_ Omera opened the door of their bedroom and closed it behind her. She was floating—she had to be. She pulled up the hem of her nightgown as she joined him in bed, just the flash of her lower leg. The cotton was soft under his hands—she was all softness, all home, all soul— _

“What was her name again?”

_ Don’ t you dare. _

“ _ O-mer-a _ ?”

“ _ Shut up _ ,” Din growled. The way Omera’s name dribbled down her chin twisted the bile in his stomach until it curdled in his throat. Xi’an giggled and turned simpering.

“Aww! Your sweet, pwetty wittle wifey—staying home with your two-point-five kids while you chase the man you used to be. How  _ sweet. _ ”

A darker light flickered behind Xi’an’s narrow pupils.

“Or are you running from him?” Her tone became deadly serious. “From me?”

“As far as I can.” Din’s stomach clenched like his fists.

Xi’an laughed, then coughed and spit. A clump of scabbed blood landed in her lap.

“Fat chance,” she wheezed. “You can run and run, ignore it all you want. But I’ll always be right there, right in that tin can head of yours.” She straightened, a wicked smile curling her upper lip. “After all...we’ll always have Alzac-3.”

The swiftness of his fist as it rocked back was almost audible. He lunged, wanting nothing more than to finish the job—but Cara’s hand gripped his elbow and pulled him back.

“Don’t let her get to you.” Cara’s lower timbre softened the blood rushing in his ears. “I don’t think she can take much more without becoming useless.”

Against every instinct, every urging of his honor, Din’s fist lowered. His foot dragged on the permacrete as he pulled back, squared his shoulders, tried to come back into his own head.

“Who sent you?” he asked, voice almost too measured.

Xi’an batted her eyelashes as best she could with one eye starting to swell.

“Did I have to be sent?”

“Who sent you.” Not a question—a statement. A threat.

“Maybe I just missed you.”

“Or maybe you never do anything without knowing your angle.”

“And maybe that angle is  _ you. _ ” Suddenly, unexpectedly, Xi’an’s tone grew earnest, almost wistful. “Oh, Mando. It was so  _ fun. _ Running with you again.”

She paused, waiting for words Din couldn’t conjure into his mouth. 

“You know,” she continued, “I almost came to help you when all those droids came to play. But Mayfeld stopped me.” There was no mocking in her gaze now, no perverse flirtation. Din would have almost called it genuine affection, yearning—if he didn’t know any better. “Can you imagine it, Mando? You and me, back to back, sharing all that adrenaline—just like we used to be?”

Like they used to be…

_ “On your six!” Xi’an’s voice echoed through the melee. _

_ Mando smirked under his helmet. Things were about to get a whole lot easier. He could hear all the throats opening behind him, all the desperate sucking breaths that never made it to the lungs. He pressed forward. Headshot. Headshot. Light leaving their eyes as a third burned through their foreheads. He had almost believed in souls once. Almost. But what use did that belief have? Before, it had frozen him. Now, free of it, killing was only snuffing out a light. Meaningless light. _

_ Xi’an giggled and pressed her warmth against his back as he hacked the lock. There was nothing left around them but a garden of dying groans. _

“And afterwards...when I would come to you…”

_ The ring of her fingernails against steel— _

“When we would—”

Xi’an cried out as Din’s fist clenched around her shattered jaw. Cara’s voice warning him was nothing now. The crackling of bone fragments under his fingers wasn’t nearly enough to sate him. Xi’an let out a groan.

“You remember, Mando,” she moaned. “And you want it back. And oh, how it scares you.”

Two strong arms wrapped around his torso and pulled him back. He dropped Xi’an’s jaw and his hand still echoed with its shape. He didn’t know how he got into the hallway, but when he came back into his skull again, Cara was there, hands on either side of his helmet. She was saying something that he couldn’t hear.

“...need a break.”

“But—"

“No.” Her voice came in clear again. “You’re letting her into your head, and she is running this thing. You’re still high on that fight energy, and you need to let it out. I’ll stay with her, make sure she doesn’t leave.”

Cara’s hands dropped to his shoulders.

“Go to Omera,” she said. “I’m sure she needs you just as much as you need her.”

Guilt needled into his limbs.

_ I’m not. _

As he turned away, his steps echoed against his rapid pulse. In his mouth, the taste of blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK!  
> And what a time to return! Our Mando is back for a new season, it's Halloween, and where I'm at, the weather is perfect--how could I not come back?  
> Yeah, this chapter was a bit intense, both to write and to read back to myself. But I really hope you enjoyed the suffering.  
> Next week--some reconciliation. :)


	17. Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of her existence turned into breath. Numb in the wake of the hurricane.

Time fit like a dress that was both tight enough to constrict Omera's breathing, and so loose that she feared she would drown. She'd been scrubbing at the blood on the floor for seconds. She'd been scrubbing for hours. The chrono on the wall hadn't changed. The chrono on the wall had leapt forward by days. The rag in her hand was dry, then immediately soaked through with the acrid combination of cleaning solution and organic iron.

Din had left seconds ago.

Din was never coming back.

And hadn't that been her worst fear? All those months ago, as she watched him and his child fade into the treeline, hadn't a tear stung at the corner of her eye, knowing it was for the best, but yearning all the same? And hadn't her heart nearly burst in spite of everything when she watched the Razor Crest cross her sky once again?

And now it ached again, with the fear of losing what she never thought she would be given. A second chance.

Something sharp sliced into her finger. Biting her lip to stifle a cry, Omera jerked her hand back and peered closer to the floor. The offending object—a small, white, pointed bone. A fang. Gingerly, Omera pinched it between her fingers and held it to the light. Even when she wasn't in the room, this murderess had landed a hit on her.

Revulsion and fury churned inside her again. Omera pushed herself to her feet and bolted to the trash bin, dropping the fang into it and stepping back as if it would resurface, attached to a mouth full of its kind, all porcelain spit-slick edges, ready to eat her alive. And just as soon as it surfaced, it dissipated. All of her existence turned into breath. Numb in the wake of the hurricane.

The sound of the hydraulic door opening behind her snatched her back to reality. She whirled around, ready to face Din and flood him with apologies, with soothing, loving words. And yet, the moment she set her gaze on him, every word she wanted to say clogged in her throat. There he stood, returned, just as she had wished. And yet there was something fundamentally wrong with his stillness, especially when the air around them hummed with the energy of unspoken, broken feelings.

“...Where is she?”

“The covert. Cara’s watching her.”

She was still alive. Omera’s teeth ground into each other.

“So you didn’t find anything out?”

Din didn’t move a muscle.

“No. I didn’t.”

Din had never been so short with her, even when they had first met. Something had gone wrong—and he was keeping it from her. 

“What happened?” she asked, testing the waters. “If she didn’t tell you who sent her, what did she say?”

“Nothing.” His voice snapped without venom, a response too quick to be genuine.

“You know you can tell me, don’t you?”

Slowly, Din’s head bowed. The fingers on one of his hands flinched.

“It wasn’t important.”

“I think it was. She said something, and it hurt you.”

“No.”

“You’ve never lied to me before, Din,” Omera pleaded, her words straining past her vocal cords. “Please, don’t start now.”

And finally, Din moved—but not toward her. Instead, he took two heavy steps toward the table and leaned his hands against it. His head ducked between his arms as his shoulders clenched. A deep inhale, and Omera clung to the words she was certain would come pouring out...but nothing came.

_ Are you really that surprised _ ? A voice inside her chastised.  _ You pushed him away. Now bring him back. _

With a deep breath of her own, Omera began to approach Din, the sound of her footfalls not reaching her ears.

“I’m not mad at you, Din,” she started. “I didn’t make that clear before,and I’m sorry.”

“Then what  _ are  _ you angry at?”

Omera froze mid-step, her foot hovering for a moment, as if unsure of its landing. A flicker from the embers she’d shoved to the back of her mind. And as it sparked and grew stronger, images appeared in the flames: white helmets, insignias against stark black fields, frightened brown eyes that looked just like hers, a sneering woman holding a flashing knife to the neck of the man she loved—

“Her,” she blurted out. “I’m angry at her. For invading our lives, for trying to take you from me.”

Something wet under her foot—the blood-soaked rag she had long abandoned. She kicked it out of the way and continued her advance.

“I’m also angry at whoever sent her. I’m angry at the Empire for trying to make us afraid. And I am so, so angry at this galaxy that won’t leave us alone, won’t let us just live our lives together.”

She was by his side now, and she felt the pent-up emotions radiating off of him in waves. Slowly, as if trying not to scare him off again, one of her hands lighted between his shoulder blades. She fought her shock—she’d never felt him tremble before. And yet beneath her hand, he shook like a leaf just about to fall.

“But don’t think,”she finished, “for a second, that I am angry at you.”

“I am.”

Din’s hands gripped the edge of the table even tighter.

“I’m angry that I let this happen.” His rasping voice became harsh and vulnerable all at once. “I’m angry that I let myself be...who I was. Before you and Winta. Before the kid.”

Din shook his head and let out a shaky sigh.

“And I can’t escape that past. It’ll just keep coming back, and you and the kids will always be in the crossfire.”

The edge of Din’s visor peeked at her.

“They deserve better,” he intoned. “ _ You  _ deserve better.”

Dread fractured through Omera’s system like a sheet of ice breaking under her feet.

“...What are you saying?”

“I’m saying…”

Din’s voice cut off, as if he didn’t want to know that answer either. He swallowed hard, then maneuvered himself out from under Omera’s hand, turning his back to her.

“I’m saying...that I know someone who can take you and Winta back to—"

“No.” Omera clapped a hand over her mouth to try and stop the cry that came through anyway. The hand fell to her heart, then limp to her side. “Don’t you finish that sentence. Don’t you dare.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll break my heart,” she choked, as if the heart in her chest didn’t already feel like an open wound. “And I don’t know how much more breaking it can do.”

_ Enough,  _ every inch of her screamed.  _ Enough. _

With surprising speed, Omera swept to Din’s side, grabbing his shoulder and turning him to face her.

“Look at me, Din.”

Din’s visor hesitantly rose to meet her gaze, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Omera’s hands flew to the sides of his helmet, but Din’s hands were just as urgent as they gripped her wrists.

“Please,” he croaked. “Don’t...don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Din, my love, I need to see your eyes. I need to know that you hear me when I tell you this.” Omera pulled Din’s face closer to her, yearning for the man she loved, not the exterior he tried to present. “I need  _ you _ .”

And after a long, full breath that he never released, Din’s hands flattened over Omera’s and lifted.

Omera’s mind went completely silent. Din was almost unrecognizable. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it tremored with the effort. Every angle and curve of his face seemed deeper, full of shadow, full of weariness. But his eyes struck Omera’s heart the hardest. Rimmed with tears he refused to shed, they spoke desolation, regret—pain, so much  _ pain _ —

Omera dumped the helmet on the table with an unceremonious, hollow ring and caressed the sides of Din’s almost feverish face.

“Din.” Her own voice shook. “Listen to me. I will  _ never  _ leave you.”

At her words, Din’s eyes screwed shut. He drew his bottom lip between his teeth, trying to contain himself, but Omera felt the tension about to snap beneath her fingers. A tear slipped through Din’s defenses, and Omera ignored her own in favor of wiping his away.

“I love you, Din,” she continued, “and I know you love me. And  _ that _ —” Din’s forehead rested heavily against hers—"is what’s going to keep us strong, no matter what happens. I am not going  _ anywhere _ , you understand me?”

And with a gasp, Din collapsed. Catching him as he fell, Omera guided them to the floor and pulled him to her chest, one of her hands running through his hair. Din’s shoulders heaved with weeping. His hands clutched at her dress, her hair, her shoulders, her back, erratic, seeking some purchase, something to cling to. Between gulps of air, Din’s hoarse voice begged, cursed, cried her name with abandon.

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—you—you deserve—"

Omera shushed him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. But Din kept on.

“So much—so much I wish I could give you,” he sobbed. “I wish I—I wish I weren’t—”

“Well, I don’t.” Omera tightened her embrace as her own tears fell effortlessly down her face. “I wouldn’t want you to be anyone except who you are.”

“ _ Why _ ?” Din cried out, sitting up and frantically meeting Omera’s eyes.

“Because  _ this _ ,” Omera replied, taking Din’s hands, “is the man I love. The man that I will gladly spend the rest of my life with.  _ This _ ,’ Omera continued, giving his hands a reassuring squeeze, “is the man who  _ adores  _ me, who cares for our children with all of his strength, who provides for his family, who holds me close in bed at night and makes me happy to be alive.”

As Omera poured her soul out, Din’s breaths started to even out; his own heart started to stitch itself back together. He pulled his hands from hers and tucked her hair behind her ears. She leaned hungrily into his touch.

“You are  _ my  _ Din,” she whispered, voice hoarse, “who does the best he can, and the best he can is perfect. And it always will be.”

All Din could think to do was kiss her. All he could manage with the strength he had left was to press his lips to hers, to seal himself to her in the worst part of their lives together—in the mess, in the salt water and shallow sighs after a fight they hadn’t been prepared for. And in the back of his mind, Din marvelled at the woman who held him, comforted him, accepted him under all his armor.

And for the first time, a single word occupied his mind:  _ riduur. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like it's important to let y'all know that this took me twenty pages of prep to write, and a lot of love from nikibogwater to post. This was a tough one, and I hope it was worth it.  
> Next up: Omera's got some unfinished business.


	18. Valkyrie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Omera's mind remained wide awake. It reeled. It seethed. It stalked in the quiet like a caged rock-lioness biding her time to make an escape--ready to clamp her jaws around the neck of her tormentor.

Omera couldn’t sleep.

It should have been so easy to drift off, even with the heady adrenaline still lingering over the space. She'd managed to convince Din to lie down for an hour, on one condition: that she lie down with him. Opting to sit up and keep watch, Omera had propped herself up against her pillows on their rickety second-hand bed and pulled the heavy homemade blanket around Din, curled in her lap like a contented loth cat. He'd passed out almost immediately, soothed by the rhythm of Omera's hand running up and down on his arm. That repetitive motion, the warmth of the afghan, the weight of Din's head as he dozed against her legs, had put her body in a trance-like state.

But Omera's mind remained wide awake. It reeled. It seethed. It stalked in the quiet like a caged rock-lioness biding her time to make an escape--ready to clamp her jaws around the neck of her tormentor.

That Twi’lek was still out there. In the same room where Omera and the man now fitfully asleep in her lap had shared comforting embraces, where they had sheltered their children, where they had found moments of peace between the distress of their lives. That woman, that  _ monster _ , now profaned the space that the little family had, for however brief a time, made sacred.

That could not stand. And Omera knew that, in his current state, Din could not remedy it. Not on his own.

Din grunted and shifted, turning over on his back. His eyes slowly blinked open, and when they met Omera’s, they crinkled at the edges as he gave her a sleepy grin. He mumbled a greeting that sounded like “morning,” and Omera felt her own smile turn sad. Any moment now, Din would remember. And that familiar, gentle happiness that came with waking would fade again. The hand she’d been running over his arm drifted to his chest and came to rest over his heart.

“Feeling any better?” 

There it went. The tenderness in Din’s gaze slowly ebbed away. Still, he nodded and took the hand on his chest.

“Thank you.” His voice, husky with waking, conveyed more than those two words could on their own. Omera nodded and looked toward the door. 

_ He can't finish this on his own. _

"Din," Omera said, trailing a finger down the side of his face, "would it be all right if I stepped outside for a little while?"

Concern eclipsed Din's face as he sat up, their clasped hands falling into Omera's lap.

"Why?"

Omera shrugged.

"Just some fresh air. To clear my head."

Din hesitated, silently considering. Then, after a moment, he nodded.

“Take a blaster,” he said. “Just in case.”

“Of course.”

Omera pressed a kiss to Din’s cheek before swinging her legs over the side of the bed and getting to her feet. Reaching into the drawer of the squat table beside the bed, Omera pulled out a small pistol and hung it on her belt. She grabbed her cloak off of a hook and swung it over her shoulders.

“Omera?”

She turned back from the doorway. Din’s face was nearly unreadable.

“Don’t go down there.”

Omera took a deep breath. And after she let it out, she nodded.

Her first lie to Din. And her last.

/////

There were no real streetlights on Nevarro. The ones that did turn on were so weak that they hardly counted for anything. Nevarro lay under the moon, its white purity reflecting off of the grey of the dusty ground to muddle the air into shades of purple. The only brightness to be seen blared from the cantina, along with raucous music and shouting, arguing, profanities, drunken singing--an oasis of chaos.

Omera pulled her cloak tighter and skirted around the cantina. She kept her eyes forward and her ears open. Her lips were a hard line across her face, no hint of a tremble or slightest smile. Her steps, though resolute, firmly striking the ground, were nearly silent. A shadow moved in her periphery, and as she walked, she squared her shoulders, straightened her already-ramrod spine, inconspicuously tapped a finger against the blaster on her hip. She held her breath until the shadow moved on down an alley. Casting a glance over both shoulders, she entered the covert on an exhale.

In the stillness of the abandoned covert, Omera’s steps echoed against the walls with near uncomfortable volume. She did not waver. This woman would listen to her approach, and Omera hoped that she would fear.

As Omera turned the corner, a figure shot from the ground and aimed a blaster at her. Her hand flew to her pistol, and she nearly drew it before she recognized the woman down the hallway.

“Cara?”

Down the hall, Cara quickly lowered and holstered her blaster.

“Omera?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

Omera let her hand relax and met Cara where she stood.

“I want to have a word with her.”

Cara moved to block the doorway.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.” Cara tried to redirect Omera’s gaze as it drifted toward the room over her shoulder--and the figure inside.

“Why not?”

“Because I saw what she did to Mando. She knew how to get to him, and I don’t want that to happen to you, too.”

“She tried to kill both my daughter and the man I love,” Omera said, “and I don’t even want to think about what she might have done to the baby if she’d succeeded. I think I deserve the chance to ask her why.”

Cara considered for a moment, then sighed. She sidled away from the doorway.

“I’ll be right out here.But if  _ anything  _ goes up--”

“I’ll take care of it.” Omera moved her cloak to reveal the blaster. “But if I need you, I’ll let you know.”

Her face still clearly showing her misgivings, Cara nodded and leaned against the wall. Omera rested a hand on Cara’s shoulder--one last chance to ground herself. Then she slowly pulled in a breath, steeled every bone in her body, and crossed the threshold.

The Twi’lek slowly raised her head. Her eyes were surprisingly neutral, not bitter or sadistic as Omera had expected. The Twi’lek looked her head to toe, and Omera did the same, carefully taking in every injury, some darkness inside of her wishing she could have done more.

“...You changed clothes,” the Twi’lek’s voice rattled. Omera laughed humorlessly.

“I couldn’t exactly walk around with your blood all over me.”

The Twi’lek’s eyes wandered over Omera again, appraising.

“That nightgown wasn’t doing you any favors, love. You’re--”

“Don’t call me love.”

The prisoner shrugged.

“Meant nothing by it,” she said. “But I suppose you didn’t come here to talk about your outfit.”

“No, I didn’t.”

The beady, yellowed eyes narrowed.

“Then why  _ are  _ you here?”

Omera stepped fully into the room, and the Twi’lek braced for impact...only for Omera to sit on the ground in front of her.

“I want to know what you did to him.”

Slowly, a smirk perked at the corner of the prisoner’s mouth.

“You’re going to have to be more specific. I’ve done a lot of things to him, and he’s done a lot of things to me. But you wouldn’t know about that. Mando fancies himself a hero these days.”

Omera carefully arranged her face into shock.

“What do you mean?” she asked, keeping herself from overplaying the part. “Hasn’t he always?”

The Twi’lek’s laugh wheezed silently before it roared into the empty air around them, jarring against the permacrete walls and floor. It took a moment for the bound woman to return to her senses.

“Stars, woman,” she gasped, “what kind of backwater skughole did he pick you out of?” She leaned toward Omera with a mocking sneer. “Have you ever even seen a Twi’lek before?”

“Just answer my question,” Omera gritted through her teeth.

“I told you, you hick,” the Twi’lek spat, “you’ll have to be more specific. Shall I start from the beginning?”

Pressing her teeth to her tongue, Omera sat back on her heels. She felt her fingernails dig into her palms, and every ounce of her wanted to rake them across the Twi’lek’s face.

“If that would be more convenient,” she hissed.

The Twi’lek sat back again, her sunken eye roving as if trying to find a place to start.

“Stop me if anything sounds familiar,” she eventually started. “There you are. Living your normal life, doing what you need to do to survive. Nothing miserable, but nothing particularly interesting, either. Then, a mystery man in a suit of armor shows up out of nowhere and upends everything you know, or thought you knew, about yourself. About what you really want.”

The tiniest hairline fracture appeared on the edge of Omera’s stoic facade. And the Twi’lek latched onto it.

“You probably won’t believe me. Or maybe,” she continued, gaze beginning to intensify, “some part of you already does. But I was a bit like you once. Not as dopey or naive as you, of course--I would’ve killed myself. But I  _ was  _ lonely. And when Ran decided to bring a Mandalorian onto our team, I wasn’t prepared for him. Nor, I imagine, were you.”

_ Play your part, _ Omera reminded herself.  _ Don’t give in. _

“Where I had expected some serious, stick-in-the-mud moral type, there was...him.”

Inside, Omera recoiled as she remembered expecting much the same of Din when he came into her barn for the first time.

_ No. Stay strong. Play your part.  _ Omera allowed herself a sigh to egg the prisoner on. Her gapped smile grew, knowing and cruel.

“I hate to break it to you,” she said, in a voice that declared much the opposite, “but he used to be better. Ten times the fighter he is now--ruthless. He never made the plans, but how he executed them...bloody poetry. Emphasis on the bloody. Oh?” she wheedled as she watched Omera shrink. “You thought your tamed pet was always so  _ soft  _ and  _ snuggly  _ and  _ warm _ ?”

The Twi’lek spat, narrowly missing Omera where she sat.

“He used to be a  _ warrior _ \--not just in name, but in action, in deed.” The prisoner’s brow arched as she pulled her lip under her remaining fang. “I fell in love with him instantly.”

Bile burned the back of Omera’s throat.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the Twi’lek teased, “I never got anywhere with him. Nobody ever could. Believe me, I tried. Do you know how hard it is to grab someone’s arse when they’re wearing armor?” She tutted. “Near impossible.”

A white hot anger rioted in Omera’s head, and she trembled with the effort of not strangling the prisoner. The thought of those bony, long-nailed hands groping, even daring to touch Din,  _ her  _ Din--

_ No. Play your part. Keep her talking. _

“He…” said Omera. “He isn’t exactly fond of...touching.”

“ _ No, _ ” responded the prisoner with a devastating sarcasm. “I had  _ no idea. _ I’ve got some news for you, sweets--” her tone grew deathly serious as her voice began to climb, “I knew him before you. Longer than you. Better than you. I know what’s really under that armor--all the passion, all that rage, all going to waste. In our day, he could take on any comers and drop them like flies--”

“He wouldn’t,” Omera interrupted, shaking her head. “He couldn’t.”

The Twi’lek laughed in the back of her throat, a gurgling, low sound, like a predator enjoying the moment before a kill.

“He hasn’t told you.”

Omera let a tear drop before she made eye contact. The Twi’lek was looking down on her with a sickening false sympathy, and the second she saw the tear track down Omera’s face, she howled with laughter, then pulled her lips into an exaggerated pout.

“You poor little fool! Do you want to know who he really is? What kind of monster you’ve got living under your roof?”

Forcing her lip to quiver, Omera lowered her gaze back to her lap. The Twi’lek took a breath and began.

“One of the last jobs we did together was on Alzoc-III. We were hired by the head of one of the bigger mining corporations on the planet. We expected a hit--the head of a rival company, just a one-and-done deal. But that’s not what our client had in mind. See,” she continued, leaning back and shifting against her restraints, “you probably don’t know this, but there’s nothing more bloodthirsty than a businessman with a rival--especially in a business like mining, and on a planet like Alzoc III. So he gave us a name, Nor Valenta, and told us to take them out. Didn’t say anything else, and we didn’t ask for anything but coordinates and a price.

“We got to the coordinates,” continued the prisoner, “and walked into this little shanty town, asking for Nor Valenta. And after more than a few people looked at us like we were out of our minds, we realized something. Nor Valenta wasn’t a person. It was a place.”

The Twi’lek giggled.

“A whole town as a bounty! Not that it was a big town--we only counted forty-two life signs. Still. A tall order--there were only three of us, and a pilot. But Mando...he never hesitated. Didn’t say a word. Just charged his blasters and waited.

“By the end of it, Ran killed ten. I took out twelve. But Mando took the grand prize in the betting pool that night. He took on the barracks. Twenty miners, all asleep in their bunks. Defenseless. Prone. Men and boys as young as fourteen. And only one man emerged-- _ my  _ man.”

“ _ No! _ ” Omera cried out, bending forward as if she’d been struck.

“I’m afraid so.” The grating of the prisoner’s voice became almost consoling. “If he really were trying to be an honest man, he would have told you all of this. If he really loved you…”

Omera’s anger tightened its tendrils around her throat. Her ragged breaths pattered into the silence until the prisoner spoke again.

“Something changed in him that day,” she said. “He only ran one or two more jobs with us before he left. He started hesitating, started asking questions--a habit he’s apparently dropped, or else I wouldn’t be here. He became…”

The prisoner kept speaking, but all Omera could hear was the clinching evidence she’d spilled. Omera looked up sharply, her tears long dry, as the woman kept rambling--tightening her own noose.

“...he was barely recognizable. And now, what kind of self-respecting bounty hunter is he? He--”

“His last client.”

The Twi’lek started and looked back down at the woman at her feet.

“What?”

“It was his last client, wasn’t it?” Omera’s voice rang, self-possessed and confident. “The job was suspicious to begin with, but he didn’t ask any questions. He was only thinking of me and the children. And if he’d only asked...he would have known the truth. The whole job was a set-up, wasn’t it?”

To her satisfaction, and confirming her theory, the prisoner’s lekku perked, then dropped as she sagged back against the chair, face fallen into numb shock.

“...Oh, you are  _ clever _ .” The Twi’lek’s voice sounded almost respectful. “Between your acting and your combat, you could make a pretty good hunter.”

A smirk crossed Omera’s lips.

“I’m happy where I’m at.”

Getting to her feet, Omera drew herself to her full height.

“Thank you for the information...whoever you are.”

But as she turned to leave, the prisoner’s voice rasped behind her.

“What happens now?”

Omera half-turned. The Twi’lek was leaning forward now, and everything in her face spoke danger.

“Whatever you do,” she snarled, “you’ll never be rid of me. I will always be in Mando’s head, whether you blow mine off or let me go. He will always remember me.”

Omera whipped around, raising a fist.

“You know what I’m going to do?”

Though the prisoner winced, anticipating the blow, Omera relaxed her hand and let it fall to her side.

“I’m going to marry him.”

She took a step closer, savoring the falling dread in the prisoner’s bloodied face.

“We’re going to live the rest of our lives in our beautiful little house,” Omera said as she advanced, “with our beautiful children. He’ll leave for jobs every so often, but I will always be here, waiting for him. When he comes back, he’ll hold his children in his arms and tell them bedtime stories, tuck them in, kiss them good night. And when he’s ready, “ Omera leaned into the prisoner’s face, her voice becoming jagged edges, “I will give him so many good nights that he will forget that your hands  _ ever  _ touched him. He will forget all. About. You.”

The Twi’lek lunged, teeth bared--

Omera pulled the trigger. The Twi’lek gasped, eyes widening, afraid, before growing glassy and still. Omera watched, pensively, as the blastersmoke curled out of the muzzle and into the pale moonlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She may not wear the armor, but Omera's a Mandalorian. Through and through. And anyone who doubts it doesn't live to change their mind.
> 
> Full disclosure, this is one of the favorite chapters I've ever written. I've been thinking about it ever since I decided that Xi'an was going to be the assassin months ago, and I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to finally have it out in the world.
> 
> Also--thank you nikibogwater for the title. For once, I was totally stumped. :)
> 
> See you next week, friends :)


	19. Steadfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din looked at the chrono again. Seventy-three minutes. Where was she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up. This one gets a little intense.

Omera had been gone for about ten minutes when Din finally roused himself from their bed and drew up the strength to don his  _ beskar’gam _ . She’d been gone for about twenty when he looked in on the children. He slowly opened the door, just enough to where he could lean his head into the room. He smiled warmly at Winta, curled into a ball, face buried in a pillow so that only her soft brown ringlets were visible. Opening the door a bit further, he slipped in and snuck to Winta’s bedside. Gently, he leaned down and pressed a feather-light kiss to her head.

_ My little warrior girl. _ Even with the circumstances, Din couldn’t help but be proud that his daughter had not only landed a punch on a trained assassin, but had gotten to her feet, ready to throw some more.  _ Verd’ika _ , through and through.

Din then turned to the crib on the opposite side of the room. He gazed down at the baby, one long ear pinned beneath his head as he clutched his stuffed frog in one little hand. Din laughed quietly in the back of his throat. The frog was nearly the size of the baby cuddling it. Watching him drag it around the house and yard had pulled and tightened the strings around Din’s heart. As softly as he could manage, Din laid his hand on the baby’s chest, losing himself in its rhythm of tiny breaths.

Omera had been gone for about twenty-five minutes when Din reentered the common area and looked at the chrono on the wall. His face fell, then rose again. She needed some fresh air. That was all. She could handle herself. She would call him on the comms if anything was wrong. Of course she would.

She’d been gone about forty minutes when Din’s anxiety got the better of him. He hailed her commlink—only to hear his own voice echo back to him from their bedroom. As if to confirm the fear that had already sunk its talons into his body, Din hailed again. And again, his own voice repeated Omera’s name through the empty house. Mocking.

And now he paced a groove into the common room floor. He looked at the chrono again. Seventy-two minutes. He couldn’t leave. Someone needed to be with the kids. His heart hammered into the monotonous white noise of his aimless marching.

He looked at the chrono again. Seventy-three minutes. Where  _ was  _ she? An image intruded. Din clenched his jaw, refused to look. But the image bled into the rest of his mind anyway. A beautiful woman face-down in an alley, bleeding—a man standing over her—his hands slick with—

The door opened.

With no cognition of intermediate movement, Din pulled Omera over the threshold and crushed her to his chest, overwhelmed by the relief that washed over him. Awkwardly, Omera’s hands came up to his back, upper arms pinned in Din’s embrace.

“Din—”

“Are you okay?” Din interrupted.

“What—”

He gripped Omera’s shoulders and held her at arm’s length,scanning for any obvious wounds. No bloodstains, no dirt—there was a smell, though. Ozone. Blastersmoke. A chill crawled up his throat.

“Are you okay?” he repeated, more intensely than before.

“Yes, Din. I’m okay.”

Slowly, the relief of holding Omera again ebbed away, replaced by a tide of frustration that he’d wasted so much energy fearing for her safety. He stepped back and raked a hand through his hair.

“Dank ferrik, Omera, where  _ were  _ you?” Din demanded, harsher than he intended. “What took you so long?”

Omera’s shoulders rose as her lips tightened into a thin line. She swung her cloak off of her shoulders and laid it on the back of a chair. She braced there for a moment, stroked the fabric absently with her thumbs.

“I’ll tell you,” she eventually responded, measured and even, “as long as you can promise to understand why.”

No. Omera wouldn’t have. She couldn’t have. She would never lie to him. Maybe the blastersmoke, the dusty mustiness of the covert clinging to her clothes and hair was just a fluke. The whole damn planet smelled dusty anyway, and she might have just walked through the aftermath of a drunken duel. But something behind her gaze spoke to the truth of his fear.

“...You went to the covert.”

Omera didn’t hesitate.

“Yes. I did.”

In that moment, a feeling that might have been anger if it weren’t so soft, so vulnerable, so utterly helpless, overtook Din as he pulled a chair away from the table, its wooden legs creaking and scraping against the floor. He sat as if afraid either he or the chair would break under his weight, letting his legs fall limp in front of him. Omera stood tall, her eyes unapologetic. 

“...Why?”

Omera held her stance, making no move to come closer to him, nor to back away. Her hands tightened slightly.

“Because this needs to end,” she said. “And you wouldn’t have been able to do it on your own. You were too close to her—"

“Close.” Even in its faintness, Din’s voice tasted bitter against his tongue.

“She would have found every sore spot, every weakness. Someone who didn’t know her needed to ask the questions.”

And in a delayed release, betrayal speared through Din’s body. It spread tendrils of heat, of acid burning through his abdomen as he realized what Omera had truly done—and what had truly wounded him.

“You lied to me.”

Finally, Omera softened. The determined, self-confident mask fell away, and beneath it, Omera’s eyes held sorrow.

“Din, I…” Omera’s mouth opened, nearly closed, and opened again. Din waited—for an explanation, for an apology, for  _ anything. _ But nothing came. No soft words. No comfort. Nothing.

The sickness in Din’s stomach pulsed, and for the first time, he found that he could not look at her.

“You said you wouldn’t go down there, but you did anyway,” Din pressed, his voice too big for his throat. “You lied. Why?”

Omera sighed, shook her head in his peripheral vision.

“You would never have let me go—not that I need your permission. But it would have led to an argument, and I—”

“It wouldn’t have.”

“No, I think it would have,” Omera insisted. “You are  _ so  _ protective, Din, and it’s one of the things I love most about you. But I know you, and—”

“Do you?”

Din’s brows crumpled together as he shot his gaze back to Omera, frozen where she stood. 

“Do you really believe I think so little of you that I would try to forbid you from doing something?” Din scoffed, shook his head. “Yes, it would have taken some convincing to agree for you to go down there on your own, but I would never,  _ never, _ presume to control you.”

Din pulled his legs in closer, his arm falling from where it leaned against the table.

“And the fact that you felt like I would even try, that you felt like you needed to lie to me... _ me _ , of all people…”

Din slowly fell forward, balanced his elbows on his upper legs. He still couldn’t look at her. For months, he’d done nothing but seek her gaze, the slightest flicker of her dark amber eyes setting every inch of him on gentle fire. But now, locking eyes with the woman he loved felt wrong. He hated this new tension, yet could not break from it.

From the upper limit of his view, Omera finally moved. Her feet came into view first. Then she crouched. The ends of her hair swayed against her shoulders as she angled herself to try and meet Din’s eyes. One of her hands laid delicately on top of his.

“Din. I...I only lied because I didn’t want to hurt you further. I thought,” she said as she pressed her hand further into his, “that doing this without telling you would protect you. I thought that the less we talk about her, about your past...the further away we can put it.”

For a second, Din met Omera’s gaze, but he quickly turned away again.  _ Pity. _ He projected it in every inch of her, from her posture to the way her brows curved up ever so slightly at the edges as she brought them together.

“I don’t need pity, Omera.” 

“And I’m not giving it to you. But what I realize now is that the only way to move on from the past is to be honest about it. And with each other. Din,” Omera’s fingers curled under his chin and redirected his face, meeting his hesitant gaze in earnest, “I am sorry. And I promise you, right here and now, that I will never lie to you again. No matter what happens. Do you forgive me?”

Slowly, Din nodded.

“I need to hear you say it. Do you forgive me?”

“...Yes. Yes, I do.”

The relief that descended on Omera’s face matched the breath Din released as the hurt in his heart cooled. She sat up on her knees and pressed her forehead to Din’s, and the hurt disappeared completely. To his relief, she felt like home again.

“So,” Din said after Omera pulled back again, “did you get anything from Xi’an?”

  
  


“Yes. Din…” Omera hesitated, as if trying to figure out how to soften the blow. “It was your last client. I’m guessing he’s Imperial. The whole bounty was a trap.”

“...Of course.” Somewhere in the corner of his mind, Din had already known. Even from the moment he took the job, he’d had suspicions, and they had only been heightened when he’d met the client. He’d been kind. Too kind. The moment he offered the caff...Mentally, Din kicked himself. “The one time I don’t follow my gut.”

Omera readjusted her hands so that they fit into Din’s. 

“Listen to me,” she said. “It’s not your fault. You got played. It happens to the best of us.”

“And you?” Din gripped her hands tighter. “There’s no way she just told you that. How did she play you? What else did she tell you?”

“I made her tell me about you. About your life before me. Sweetheart…” Omera slipped one of her hands out of Din’s and caressed the side of his neck, just under his jaw. “I know about Nor Valenta. About Alzac-III.”

A blow to Din’s chest, pressure busting through beskar, through flesh, through bone, and deeper. The stopping of his heart, of time itself. The one thing he had buried, the one thing he never wanted her to see...and he hadn’t even been the one to show her.

“What...what about it?” he asked, not wanting, but needing to know.

Omera swallowed.

“Everything.”

Everything.

_ “Please.” _

_ A small voice whimpered from the darkness behind him. Mando froze in the doorway, one boot on the ground outside. He had killed every man in this building, all twenty of them. He’d counted them carefully—though he wasn’t a gambling man, the extra credits from the betting pool would sound nice, jingling together in his pocket. _

_ He shook his head. It must have come from outside. He wasn’t a man who left survivors. He was efficient like that. He wouldn’t slip. He couldn’t. _

_ “Please, sir…” _

_ Slowly, Mando turned over his shoulder. From around the corner of a cot, a young boy crawled on his elbows before collapsing on his back. There was a smoldering hole just between his ribs. The edges of it crackled oxygen and blood.  _

_ “Please.” _

_ And Mando knew he wasn’t asking to be healed. _

_ He knelt beside the boy, not knowing why. _

_ “Please, please...end…” _

_ “I can’t,” Mando choked. “No more charges.” _

_ His voice stuck in his throat, suddenly foreign, far distant. Why was it getting harder to breathe? Why was everything suddenly collapsing into this moment, with this boy? _

_ The boy’s trembling, bloodied hand moved to the vibroblade in his boot. _

_ “Please…” _

_ He couldn’t have been older than twelve or fourteen, and yet he was now asking Mando the impossible. The memory hit him hard, a little brother, the siege, brave little boy, telling him to leave, where this boy now was telling him to— _

_ This dying boy would have made a good Mandalorian. _

_ He drew the knife. The boy’s hand covered his, guided it where Mando hesitated. It was mercy. It had to be. _

_ “Please...I wanna be with my daddy…” _

Me, too. _ His own father, looking down on him, the shame on his face if he could see his son now— _

_ The boy faded away. _

_ Mando wished he could fade away, too. _

“Din?”

Din gasped back into the present. He almost expected to be alone. As he deserved. And yet, here she was. Omera. Crouching before him, holding healing, holding all the love he could never deserve, holding him, holding all his broken pieces together as he fell into her arms. He clutched her close as if she would fade away, too, as if this were all a dream, and if he let her go even for a moment, he would be back in the nightmare. 

And yet, even after an eternity, even when the numbness in his legs from crouching forced him to pull away, she remained.

“...You’re still not going anywhere, are you?”

Omera smiled. How she could still smile at him, knowing everything, was a miracle. A miracle he would forever find incredible.

“Never.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back.  
> I am so sorry that I took that long off. I've been in the middle of a really bad flare with my health, and I'm just now starting to come out of it. Hopefully, things will be back to normal from now on.  
> On a lighter note, I have some Big Major Announcements coming up! On January 10, I will be doing a bunch of stuff to commemorate the one-year anniversary of publishing In the Aftermath. And there may be some special surprises involved as well as a new chapter....stay tuned ;)


	20. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new determination flooded into Din’s system. He looked down at the family in his arms, at his children, at Omera, and made a decision. Now.

“So let me get this straight. Our last client was actually Imperial, our bounty was just bait to lure you out, and now they’re trying to kill you so they can take your son and do who-knows-what with him?”

“Yes.”

Ellis crossed their legs and leaned back in their chair across the table from Din. They wrapped long fingers around the cup that Omera had set in front of them and lifted it to their lips, taking a long, continuous swig. Din adjusted himself awkwardly in his seat, then angled himself toward Ellis, about to break their pensive drinking until Neh’naa broke the silence for him.

“Okay, I have several questions,” she piped up from across the common area. “First of all, you have a  _ kid _ ?”

“Two, actually. A son and a daughter.”

Neh’naa’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped into a wider ‘o’.

“And you never mentioned it?”

Din shrugged.

“Didn’t come up.”

“Didn’t—” Neh’naa cut herself off, pinched the bridge of her thin nose with her forefinger and thumb. “We were on Ilian for days, I tried to talk to you about literally anything, and you didn’t think to bring up something as obvious as, oh, I don’t know, ‘I have a wife and kids at home’?”

“Neh’naa, that’s really not our biggest problem here,” Tobalas grumbled, two steps away from falling back asleep.

“No, you’re right,” she agreed. “Our biggest problem here is that not only do you have kids, but what’s left of the Empire is after one of them...why?”

“He’s force-sensitive.”

Neh’naa whirled around to face Ellis.

“Oh, so  _ you _ knew about his kids?!”

Ells sat their now-empty cup on the table with a quiet hollow thud.

“To be fair,” they replied, “I didn’t know about the daughter until a few seconds ago.”

Throwing her hands in the air, Neh’naa growled in frustration and turned her back to the team assembled at the table. As he leaned his chair back on two legs, Tobalas stretched his arms above his head, the faint popping of joints an undercurrent beneath his yawn.

“So why are we here?” he groaned. “Seems to me the person trying to kill you has already been taken care of.”

“Xi’an was the first of many that they’re going to send after me,” Din said, put off for a moment by how normal it felt to be hunted. “They’ve been hunting us for a year now, and they’re not about to stop, especially now that they have a definite location.”

Tobalas shrugged.

“Could always move. I mean—"

“No.” The word rang stereophonic. Din’s modulated voice wove itself with Omera’s as she stepped out from the kitchen and set a cup in front of Tobalas. She stood behind Din, and the comforting weight of her hands rested on his shoulders.

“We’ve done enough running.” Omera’s words rang true, firm, determined. “This house is our home, and we’re going to fight for it.”

Tobalas’s eyes roved the dim surroundings, found every chip in the peeling paint, the warped floorboard that creaked under Neh’naa’s feet as she paced, every scuff and scratch on the salvaged furniture. Din’s pride bristled under the scrutiny, and he pulled himself to full height in his seat.

“Might not look like much to you,” Din spoke with a tempered edge. “But it’s all we have.”

Across the table, Ellis’s tattoos curled and shifted into an understanding smile.

“What do you need us to do?”

Din took a breath, leaned forward on his elbows and laced his fingers together. Omera’s hands migrated to his shoulder blades, and for the first time, he didn’t heed his instinct to pull away from the contact against his back.

“You know the kind of reinforcements this man has,” he explained. “I can’t move against him on my own. I know you don’t owe me anything, and we’ll pay you what we can, but—”

“I’m in.”

All eyes turned to Neh’naa, a new sense of determination sparking in her light-green eyes. Her angled jaw became even sharper as she pulled her mouth into a scowl.

“And don’t insult me by trying to pay me. You’re not asking for our help in fulfilling some petty vendetta, or something stupid, like finding you some actual furniture for this place. This is for your  _ family _ .”

“Exactly,” Ellis concurred, laying their palms flat on the table. “You’re asking our help with a noble cause. And we’ll be glad to offer it.”

“Yeah.”

Din couldn’t help his surprise. From his own perspective, Tobalas had never regarded him with anything more than annoyance or disdain. But now, the young man shrugged as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“I mean, what kind of fucking assholes would we be if we said ‘no’ to helping you with your—kids.”

And at that moment, Tobalas’s eyes widened as he looked over Ellis’s shoulder. Winta stood in the doorway of her and the baby’s room, clutching said baby to her chest and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Immediately, Tobalas launched into an attempt at an apology for cursing in which he could not stop himself from cursing, before Ellis held up a hand. Tobalas took the hint and closed his mouth with a final mumbled curse.

Winta’s eyes widened and she tightened her grip on the baby.

“Mom? Dad? What’s going on?”

Releasing her hold on Din’s shoulders, Omera swept over to the children and wrapped her arms around Winta’s shoulders. 

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Omera soothed. “These are friends of your father—they’re going to help keep us safe.”

Din couldn’t help but recall his first time meeting Winta, when Omera had told her much the same thing.

“That’s right.”

Unfolding themself from their chair, Ellis rose to their feet and turned to face Winta. They linked their fingers together and let their arms hang loose in front of them.

“I take it you’re the daughter your father’s so proud of,” they said. The tension in Winta’s shoulders eased ever so slightly. “As am I, if it counts for anything—not every ten-year-old girl can face a fully trained assassin and live to see another day.”

From around Ellis’s tall torso, Winta made eye contact with Din behind his visor. A slight pink tint started to appear across her nose.

“...He told you about that?”

Ellis laughed at the back of their throat.

“Be proud of your accomplishments, youngling,” they reassured. “ _ I  _ couldn’t have managed it.” 

Crouching to Winta’s height, Ellis held out a hand.

“I’m Ellis.”

And after a moment of consideration, Winta shifted the baby into one arm and took Ellis’s hand.

“Winta.”

A soft sparking in Ellis’s eye.

“Beautiful.” Releasing Winta’s hand, Ellis’s attention turned to the baby tucked under Winta’s other arm. “And this must be my student. Potentially, of course.” Ellis reached toward the baby, but out of instinct, Winta pulled back, wrapping the baby tighter to her chest as he gave a little whine. Leaning back on their ankles, Ellis made direct eye contact. “May I?”

Slowly, Winta looked up at her mother. Omera gave Winta’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze and nodded. With no small amount of reservation, Winta handed the baby into the stranger’s hands. As Ellis extended themself back to their full height and tucked the baby into the crook of their arm, a high gasp cut through the air.

“Oh...my Maker.” Neh’naa clapped her hands over her mouth. All semblance of her previous seriousness had vaporized into giddiness. “He is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

“That is almost disgustingly cute.” Everyone’s eyes turned to Tobalas as his face finally caught up with the realization of his choice of words—and as he caught sight of Din’s knuckles clenching on the tabletop. His hands flew up in front of him. “I said  _ almost! _ ”

The baby, meanwhile, fidgeted in Ellis’s grasp, his tiny voice chipper, as if he were trying to speak. Ellis chuckled and countered his physical fussing expertly.

“Well, you weren’t kidding about his sensitivity,” they said, taking one of his little hands under their finger. “He’s practically radioactive with it.”

For a moment, Ellis stilled, like they had heard some quiet voice from far away. Then, as the baby fell silent in their arms, they made a slow circuit of the room. Ellis’s eyes never left the baby’s. Every so often, they would hum, as if concurring with something in a silent discussion.

“Tell you what, kid,” they finally said. “After we make sure you’ve got a safe place to live, we’ll talk some more about our...shared interests. Okay?”

And suddenly, it dawned on Din.

“You...can talk to him?”

Ellis nodded and crossed to Din. They lifted the baby from his position in their arms and dropped him into his father’s waiting hold.

“In a way,” they answered. “We can sense each other’s thoughts, emotions—things that words aren’t always useful for.”

Ellis took a deep breath, their eyes still locked on the child.

“Right now, for example,” they continued, their tone growing more serious, “he’s worried about you. And his mother and sister. He’s scared of where this is leading, and he’s scared...that you’re going to get hurt.”

Slowly, Din brought his attention down to the baby. And the child's eyes spoke more than words could ever hope to.

“Me, too.”

Winta’s voice shook on its way out, and tears shimmered on the edges of her eyes. With a hum, Din held his arm out to her. Winta ran to him and launched herself into his waiting embrace. After a moment, Din felt Omera’s arms covering his. As he prepared to speak, he had no idea if everything was going to go as planned, or if he was going to break their hearts by breaking the promise he was about to make. But comforting his children, his family, won out over brutal honesty.

“I’ll be okay, guys,” he murmured. “ It’ll all be okay. I promise.”

Omera slipped a hand into Din’s, and gripped it tight.

“And we’ll hold him to that,” Ellis’s voice interrupted the solace.

Din looked up at Ellis where they stood, their stance confident in all the ways that Din couldn’t quite bring himself to be.

“Yeah.” Tobalas’s voice sounded like a thin disguise. His normally-open face was unreadable as he kept his gaze averted from the familial scene unfolding in front of him. “Yeah, we will.”

And in that moment, a new determination flooded into Din’s system. He looked down at the family in his arms, at his children, at Omera, and made a decision.  _ Now. _

“Meet me at the Razor Crest in an hour. I have something I need to take care of before we go.”

Soon, the house held only its inhabitants. Din pulled back from the embrace.

“Winta, take your brother and go get dressed. I need to talk to your mom about something.”

With one last squeeze, Winta obeyed, scooping her brother into her arms and closing their bedroom door behind her. Meanwhile, Din stood and pulled his helmet off as if he hadn’t done so in days. There was a desperation in his eyes, some chaotic energy that Omera mistook for foreboding.

“Omera—”

“Din, if you’re about to tell me how you might not make it, don’t—"

“Marry me.”

Every thought in Omera's mind exploded into a shatter of short-circuited sparks. Had she...had she heard that right? The only word she could summon to her mouth:

“...What?”

Din laughed breathlessly, took her hands tightly in his.

“Omera,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time, and I wish I could do it in a more—romantic way, a better time.”

_ This...this is happening.  _

“But I love you so much.” He punctuated his declaration by pressing kisses to her hands, just starting to shake. Din’s voice was fervent, insistent, bold in all the ways she’d never heard before—and wanted to hear for the rest of her life. “And I want to go before the Armorer with you and take our vows. I want to leave this rock as your husband…” 

_ Oh, my stars. It’s happening. _ A shaky grin slowly surfaced against her lips as Din cupped her face in his hands.

“And when this is all over, when our family is safe once again…I want to come home to my bride.”

_ His bride. Before his gods, before his ancestors, I am going to be his...bride. _

The impulse that had driven his declaration started to wane as Omera reeled. But before he could stammer any semblance of an apology, Omera surged forward and captured his mouth in a kiss filled with everything she couldn’t find the capacity to verbalize, every gratitude for the past, every hope for a loving future. Din returned it in kind, pulling her flush to his body, wishing his armor away so she could feel how hard his heart was pounding for her, only her—always her.

“Ew.”

Omera giggled against his lips, resembling the young newlywed she had once been—and which she was about to be again.

“Winta, honey,” Din called over Omera’s shoulder. Omera’s heart stuttered—Din had never called Winta that before. “Come over here—I want to ask you something very important.”

Scandalized, but still curious, Winta came over to her embracing parents. Behind her, the child shuffled his tiny feet to catch up. Reaching out, Din pulled her into his side.

“Winta,” he asked, tone serious in spite of the unshakeable smile on his face, “I want your permission to do something.”

“What is it?”

Din met Omera’s glance, then turned back to her— _ their  _ daughter. Din almost hadn’t noticed just how grown-up Winta had become in the past months, but here she stood, waiting for his request with a seriousness beyond her years.

“Sweetheart,” he managed to ask, savoring the moment just before her reaction, “I want to marry your mother.”

And in an instant, Winta’s sternness dissolved into the glee of a child being given their deepest wish.

“ _ Really?! _ ”

“Really.”

“But—when?”

Din smirked and turned back to his—his  _ betrothed.  _ How she glowed amber in her surprise, in her joy. How he wanted to live in this moment forever.

“Now.”

  
  
  


Arm in arm, the clan moved through the covert, the newly-engaged, soon-to-be-married couple flanked by their children, one practically skipping beside her mother, the other chirruping on his father’s hip. All of the slowly-emerging dawn light eking through the vents swirled around them, the dust that would normally be an irritant becoming an iridescent decoration. And as they approached the forge, the solemness of the occasion dawned on them. But instead of becoming frightened or nervous, Din and Omera met each other’s eyes, and even though Din’s face was hidden, Omera knew, with an instinct she had honed in all their time together, that he was grinning at her.

“Let’s do this.”

The Armorer already stood waiting for them before the forge—she’d heard their approach. Din straightened himself, not out of any tension or nervousness, but in respect for the Armorer, for his bride, for his family, for himself. Quietly, Din handed the baby to Winta, who backed away so that only Din and Omera stood before the Armorer’s penetrating presence.

Din summoned his most ceremonial tone.

“I wish to bind myself to Omera through the vows of Riduurok.”

The Armorer looked between the two of them, gaze lingering for a moment on how tightly Omera held onto Din’s arm.

“A wise decision,” the Armorer responded facing Din. “You have chosen a worthy bride.” She turned her attention to Omera. “You handle yourself with dignity and cleverness, and I will be glad to have such a woman in our Tribe.”

The Armorer brought her hands in front of her, clasping them together.

“Face one another and join your hands.”

Omera slipped her arm from Din’s and turned to face him. Beneath his leather gloves, Omera could feel his hands trembling.

“Repeat these words.”

_ We are one when we are together… _

How perfect her voice sounded when it joined with his...

_ We are one when we are apart… _

How she longed to watch his lips form the vows that would bind them forever...

_ We will share all we have in common… _

As the Armorer instructed their last vow, both parents turned to their children, and, unbeknownst to the other, both dreamed of children yet to come.

_ Together, we will raise warriors. _

With a grunt of approval, the Armorer enveloped the couple’s hands with her own.

“By those vows,” she declared, “you are now united by the bonds of Riduurok. May the  _ ka’ra  _ look upon this marriage with favor, and bless its fruits.”

Din couldn’t contain himself anymore. He dropped Omera’s hands and lifted her off of her feet, wishing nothing more than to be able to kiss her, soundly, deeply—as her  _ husband _ .

_ Later, _ he reminded himself. 

“When I come home,” he murmured through his modulator into her shoulder, “we’ll celebrate like a husband and wife should.”

“I can’t wait,” she whispered. She pulled back ever so slightly, one of her hands caressing the side of his helmet. Her eyes came alive with a fire that made something unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, clench in his gut. “Now go end this.”

As he set her back on her feet, Omera stood on her tiptoes and took his head in her hands, pressing a lingering kiss to the crown of his helm.

“For luck.”

Din pulled her back in by her hips, pressing his forehead into hers with all the passion he could muster.

“All my love.”

As the husband and wife achingly separated, Winta rushed to Din’s side and threw her arms around his waist. Din chuckled as he reciprocated.

“Hold the fort for me,  _ verd’ika, _ ” he said.

“I will, Dad. I promise.”

And finally, Din turned to his son—the little child he had had no idea would start him down this path, into this life he now lived, and never wanted to leave behind. Gently, he touched his forehead to his son’s.

“Be good.”

And in his heart of hearts, Din felt the baby’s reply:  _ I will. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry late Christmas to everybody who celebrates, and Happy Kwanzaa to those currently celebrating! I hope this is a suitable present. 😊 I'm hoping to have the next chapter up next week, but please check my Tumblr (@poetryinmotion-author) in case that plan changes.


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